• You could not purchase a long vehicle until you were at least 18.  In some states you would only be able to purchase ANY vehicle after your 21st birthday.
• You could only obtain a short vehicle after your 21st birthday.
• The military would train young folks to use vehicles that they would not be allowed to use in civilian life.
• The military would send young people overseas to use vehicles they were prohibited to own at home.
• In some states you would be subject to up to a fifteen day waiting period between time of purchase and the day you could take your vehicle home.
• In some states you would only be able to purchase one vehicle per month.
• In some states you would not be able to obtain military style vehicles – even if the military features were only cosmetic, not functional.
• Automatic vehicles would be subject to a federal tax, extensive background check of the purchaser and you would have to advise the proper authorities prior to transporting them over state lines.
• Automatic vehicles would be illegal to own in many states.
• Mufflers for your vehicle would be illegal in many states.
• Mufflers for your vehicle would be subject to a federal tax, extensive background check of the purchaser and individual serial numbering.
• Possessing a vehicle fitted so that a muffler could be installed would be prohibited in many areas – even if you did not possess a muffler for the vehicle.
• A Federal Bureau of Automobiles would be able to drop in and examine manufacturer and dealer records and could arbitrarily shut down the dealer or manufacturer for any violation (intentional or unintentional) of the federal or local vehicle paperwork requirements.
• In order to be a vehicle dealer (buying and selling any number of vehicles for profit would constitute being a dealer) you would have to apply for a Federal Vehicle Dealer License.
• Congress would constantly be seeking ways to “shut the car show loophole” to prevent Mexican drug cartels from obtaining vehicles on the black market.
• Every time a vehicle was used to commit a crime the Brady Campaign To End Vehicle Violence would call on congress to enact further restrictions on law-abiding vehicle owners.
• Each and every vehicle would have to be accounted for through every step of manufacturing and a federal excise tax would be collected from manufacturers of vehicles and fuel.
• Manufacturing a vehicle without the special vehicle manufacturer license would be a felony.
• Modifying a vehicle from manual to automatic would be a felony.
• Possessing the parts necessary for modifying a vehicle to automatic would be a felony – even if no modification to the vehicles in possession had been done.
• People would be scandalized to find out that you owned an automatic vehicle – even if all the paperwork, taxes, fees and such were in order.
• Preachers would speak from the pulpit about the evils of vehicles and condemn anyone who owned one as a “violent criminal” – no matter how peaceful the person might be and no matter that the vehicle in question had never been used in a crime.

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First Shot

The load was 68 grains of FFFg (because that’s what three INDUMIL 38 spl cases full weighs), a tallow greased cotton patch and a Lyman .440 diameter lead ball.  I played around with some cap gun caps, but ignition was iffy.  If I primed the nipple with a few granules of FFFG then the caps would fire the load. Otherwise it was iffy.  Somehow or other I had a few CCI caps as well, and they were more sure fire.

Firing was done off hand for the most part, two shots taken from sitting. Considering I’ve not done any shooting in a while and the load was completely improvised I don’t thing it turned out too bad.  One shot was fired by the club president who happened to drop by.  He saw my group and decided to try and center the bullseye.  His kentucky windage was off a bit.   One of these days I need to head back up there with a file and a drift punch and try to get on the target out at 50 meters.  But all in all it was a good day at the range.

First Group

Oh, and the neighbors dropped by.  There’s some folks building a place up behind the gun club.  Their son loves firearms – but had never had a chance to fire one.  He’s only 7 years old.  So I gave them the good ol’ safety lecture and let him try the pellet pistol and the kids’ sized pellet rifle.  Once they get their place built I suspect I’ll have occasional visits with the lil’ guy when I’m up there.  The picture shows him pointing to his second shot – which nearly centered the bullseye.

Proud Kid

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Recently a fellow started posting there.  He goes by the name Charlie and builds guns for a hobby.  Now, a lot of folks do that anymore.  They’ll order up a bunch of parts from Brownells or Midway or one of a number of other places and put them together.  Some of the guns so produced are fairly easy to do.  Put everything in the right place and PRESTO! You’ve got a functional firearm.  Others are more demanding, requiring some filing or stoning of parts to get them to fit and function properly.  But all these have one thing in common – they rely on mass produced factory parts.  Not that I’m trying to take anything away from the folks who build a gun this way, not at all. I’m in the process of building up a Kentucky rifle from a poorly built kit that was given to me a couple years back.  It takes time and effort to get it right.

But Charlie does something a bit different.  He builds his guns from scratch – and makes his own scratch.  The rifle that is the subject of this little piece is his rendering of an old design.  The Volcanic was a weapon made by Smith and Wesson before they became Smith & Wesson. It was a lever action design that fired a “rocket ball” which was basically a hollow based lead bullet with a charge of powder and a primer in it. The ballistics left a lot to be desired but the design gradually evolved to become the Henry, then the Winchester ‘66, the Winchester 73 and eventually the Winchester ‘76.  The main problem with building a Volcanic today lays with the need to use an available cartridge.  The original design makes it impossible to chamber this rifle for anything much longer than a 22 short cartridge, although there’s enough room for the 41 rimfire.  So Charlie designed his own cartridge around the 40 S&W – by trimming it down, reaming it out and loading it with a pinch of powder.  My friend Hobie did a blog post on the building process of the Volcanic.

What I find interesting in this entire process is that Charlie basically came up with the idea, made some calculations, did some drawings and went to work.  The quality of his work has to be seen to be understood.  He is a careful craftsman who is very painstaking in his efforts.  AND – if he can build something like this, what could NOT be built?  All the efforts of the gun banning crowd are useless as long as people have the creativity and ability to design and build machines or tools according to their desire and inclination.  Many folks forget our past.  Bill Ruger started out designing a machine gun.  Can you imagine the trouble he would be in today for building such a tool in his garage or basement? J.M. Browning was constantly experimenting.  One time he even converted a Winchester leveraction to full automatic fire. Again, if you do that today you will be in a world of hurt if the authorities find out.  BUT IT IS STILL DOABLE. With the wide availability of machine tools in the US and the world as well as the skilled craftsmen who use them, it is impossible to prevent people from building any firearm they so desire.

So, what to do about violence and crime?  They do not stem from the availability of firearms.  They stem from a mindset that views others as less than one is and the desire of obtaining that which another worked for with as little effort as possible and the decision to impose one’s will upon others by violent means.  These things were going on LONG before the advent of firearms – and if by some miracle all firearms were to be destroyed overnight the violence and crime would continue because it stems from the heart, not the tools available.

In my library I have a few books that detail the building of firearms in primitive settings.  One is a Firefox book that shows how early settlers would smelt iron and then work it into usable form on the anvil and make some of the most beautiful and elegant firearms ever, the Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Kentucky “Mountain Rifles” or “Long Rifles”. Charlie holds my respect for building such an intricate design as the Volcanic.  And I extend to him my gratitude for sharing with us the process he followed.

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Recently someone left a knife at our place.  It was in horrid condition and showed signs of abuse.  Since the same folks also caused stuff of our to no longer appear it wasn’t hard to convince myself to give the old abused cutlery a new lease on life.  So below is a photo essay on the process. Essentially it went kind of like this.  First, remove hollow plastic handle thingy.  Not too hard since one of the rivets was actually a melted lollipop stick. Then use a grinder to reshape the blade and angle the cutting edge. Use an orbital sander with coarse paper to give it a “matte” finish and then add a multilayered nylon rope/string/epoxy glue handle and sharpen the blade on a whet stone.  The abuse is still evident on one side of the blade, but it’s much more useful now. And then I finished it up by dipping the wrapped handle into liquid rubber to seal it from water and to give it a better non-slip grip surface.

The tools I used were basic.  The skill level low.  All I had to do was remember to keep the steel cool so that it would not lose its temper.  It would be a matter of maybe two minutes to reshape one of those “stab proof” knives into something that could easily be used to stab.  What the presumably well intentioned folks who invented that knife don’t seem to understand, it’s not the tool – it’s the person who uses it.  And if one is intent on going around stabbing folks, nothing will stop them from obtaining or manufacturing the tool necessary for such activities.  The weapon does not cause one to use it inappropriately. Inappropriate behavior comes from inappropriate thought patterns and belief systems.

You can click on the images below for a larger version of them, then use your browser’s “Back” button to return to this page.

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Now, to many, pellet guns are “short range” affairs – unable to do anything past the regulation 10 meters used in Olympic competition. But since I was raised far from such things with a Daisy 880 in my hand I didn’t get the news. We hunted with our Daisys, taking small game out to fairly long distances (for a smootbore pellet “rifle”). In fact, my standard reactive target was a small vienna sausage can on a stick at about 20 meters or so. And it got riddled with BB’s quite regularly. Pellets offered both extended range and better penetration on the pests and game that we hunted. Now, with the CFX, I have a pellet gun that is capable of taking game out past 50 meters – as long as I do my part. And the IZH 46M is also capable of taking game out past 30 – if I can hit it. And that was the problem. Patterns rather than groups – and much larger than I hoped to see. Initial “long range” shooting of the pistol showed that it wasn’t giving me better than 8 ring accuracy at 25 meters – using a standard 25 meter slow fire centerfire target.

So today I managed to get up to the range and took a brand new .17 caliber brush and rod with me as well as a new brass jag and some JB’s nonembedding bore cleaning paste. First order of business was to give the barrel a good cleaning. Between the brush with some Hoppes spray cleaner and the jag with tight patches covered with JB’s paste I got a lot of black stuff out. Then I started fiddling with the sights. It seemed to be hitting high and to the left so first I took it 10 clicks right – seemed to have the right windage so 5 clicks down. Then another five, then another two. In between this I was shooting 5 to 10 pellets to check for some general grouping which would indicate where the sights were actually pointing. Once I got it to grouping in the 10 ring I moved to a fresh target. First I cleaned the barrel again finishing with a quick swipe with a patch oiled with “Paul’s Special Gun Lube And AntiOxidant”. Then I took a shot at a hanging bottle to push any excess lube out of the way and then fired 25 rounds of RWS Club pellets on target “for record” so to speak. A look through the spotting scope was followed by a walk down range to take a closer look and a picture.

Not too shabby! This was a DEFINITE improvement over the 8 ring patterns I was getting before. As you can see, most of the pellets are in the 10 ring with a good number in the “X” ring. I followed it up with another 25 rounds shot off hand at another target. (the target above was shot from a sitting position with the pistol rested on my off hand which was resting on my knee). A look through the spotting scope indicated that the shooter definitely needs tightened up. The pistol does fine, as evidenced above, but shooting off hand I had about 8 or so shots in the 9 ring.

Well success, of sorts, was mine. A pistol capable of holding the 10 ring at 25 meters. But, is it repeatable? What if I run out of RWS pellets? A tin of Gamo Match wadcutters was also in the case so I cleaned the pistol again (much less fouling than before) and shot another 25 rounds.

Now we’re talking! This time the group was mostly in the X ring, not just the 10 ring! I can’t account for the fliers at 8 o’clock and 12 o’clock, the sights seemed solid each shot with as uniform a trigger squeeze as I could manage. Perhaps deformed pellets? I’m not sure – but with the majority in the X ring I figure that if I carefully sort the Gamo Match pellets to eliminate deformed skirts and perhaps to sort for weight that this little popper should be capable of holding the X ring consistently. Now if only I can learn to shoot up to the gun. With a gun this accurate it’s just a matter of time and effort as misses are clearly either my fault or due to faulty ammo.

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One of the problems with living in a “third world country” is that often one is subjected to less than ideal products and services. One pretty much has to just put up with it, although sometimes one CAN influence a situation or person to provide a better outcome than expected.

This type of situation happened on Sunday. There was a local IPSCA competition. Dozens of people congregated. Dozens of guns were all over the place. Thousands of rounds of ammunition were available. Besides the usual crowd of guys there were also a number of women in attendance – some of which were fairly attractive. But, contrary to what we are told to expect by the mass media and the “political gurus”- not one murder, robbery or rape took place.

This leads me to the following conclusion. Since we live in a third world country where the aforementioned quality control problems tend to abound it is quite obvious – the place was full of defective guns…

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There were plenty of reasons for stress in my life at the time, as if the stress of teenage growth and maturation were not enough.  And I found in that pellet gun a means of release.  I could step out the back door with a fist full of pellets and commence to make the can I’d set up at the other end of the yard dance around.  With constant practice I was able to hit about anything I so desired out to any reasonable (and even unreasonable) range.  At one time I purposely left the sights offset, kind of like a carnival gun.  I could hit anything I could see using “kentucky windage” but anyone else was hopelessly lost.    One time I even plinked one of the family dogs.  Two pumps in the old Daisy was not much velocity and the BB was light steel.  And yet I was able to drop that BB right on old Bolão at a distance of close to a city block.  The BB probably picked up more velocity as it gained speed dropping back to earth than it had when it left the barrel.  Anyway, Mom saw that I’d broken one of the cardinal rules (DON’T point that gun at ANYTHING you do not intend to destroy) and the Daisy was confiscated for a month.  Bolão was non the worse for the experience, just a bit startled – and I was a bit wiser for the punishment.

That old Daisy showed me that if you will take time to concentrate on centering your sights properly and squeezing the trigger correctly that you can consistently hit your target.  And while you’re concentrating on this simple physical exercise your  mind will focus on the task at hand rather than on the problems surrounding you.  We also had a couple of firearms around and ammo as well.  They were never locked up and they were loaded or the ammo was next to them at all times.  At no time did I ever think of taking one of them and using it to vent my frustrations and anger by taking a human life.  And even my experiment with Bolão was not a result of anger or frustration but rather the idle thought of “I wonder if…”.  If I’d wanted to cause him harm I’d have used the full power of the Daisy at 10 pumps and I’d have gotten closer and put one in his head.

Children and firearms are not a problem – as long as those children are taught respect and discipline.  We carried our Daisy 880’s all over the place, and never used them to harm anyone or anything.  We hunted with them, it’s true, but we ate everything we shot – with the exception of the iguanas that raided the fruit trees and chicken pen.  I skinned one once but the odor was so bad that it ended up fertilizing the garden rather than gracing the dinner table.

Now, all these years later, I find myself using the old “long range perforation” therapy from my youth.  The local shooting club receives my monthly dues and when chance or necessity affords the opportunity, off to the range I hie myself with a Gamo CFX and a Crosman 1377 in tow.  There I can set up out to 50 meters and the wonders of concentrating on the sites and the target and the trigger squeeze work their magic.  After a few initial rounds to settle in a bit the groups start to tighten and the tension starts to ease.  Since midweek is about the only time I can make it up there, the range is almost always deserted.  This makes it even better since I can sit there and listen to the birds and read my Bible and talk to God between targets.

The world would be a better place if more folks would learn to use long range perforation to take out their frustrations and to concentrate their mind on something other than doing harm to others.

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You can only pick one rifle – hunting, self protection, plinking, fondling, drooling over… etc. You won’t have any others at home, at camp, in the car, at some member of your families home. You have to choose only one. It has to be one you have or one you are working to own/build etc. I would like to know which one it is, and why. I am leaving a little room to wiggle with the second part of the question.

With that one rifle, you get to have one pistol, same rules, no others anywhere else.

I ain’t played one of these games in a while -but always find them interesting. Shucks, right now I’ve only GOT one handgun and no funds to pick up a rifle. A lot of it has to do with your surroundings and where you live in the first place. Here? Well, here, south of the Rio Grande by a considerable distance, a 38 revolver and a 22 rifle are hard to beat. Ammo’s fairly easy to come up with (“fairly” being a relative term) since those are probably the two most common calibers.

Now, if I were up in the US – it’d be a different story. There??? Well, he threw a monkey wrench into the system with his “only two” with no wiggle room for an “omnipresent” 22 LR. How can you get along without a 22 in the US of A? Skeeter Skelton’s character, Dobie Grant, picked the good ol’ 22 LR as a “one rifle” in a similar exercise. There’s a lot to be said for a 22 rifle – it can take game up to and including black bear and elk – if you pick your shots CAREFULLY. We’re not talking about HUNTING, we’re talking about KILLING – probably with the aid of “non-sporting” methods. The object being to simply fill the pot. A 22 LR will also give you the means to obtain a more potent weapon in a “Red Dawn” type scenario in which the country’s over run by foreign “liberators” and the good ol’ boys have taken to the hills.

So, a 22 rifle and a centerfire hand gun. Picking the handgun is tough too. 38 spl/357 ammo’s almost everywhere, even in this day and age of the WonderNine bottom feeders. But there’s a lot to be said for the power of a 45 Colt in a modern sixgun like a Blackhawk or Vaquero. In fact, it would be easier to download the 45 to “cat sneeze’ levels for plinking/smallgame/etc than it is to hotrod the 38/357 to the level of power which a hot loaded 45 is capable of. In fact, you CAN’T get a 357 up to the level of power the 45 Colt is capable of in a MODERN large framed revolver.

So, choice one - 22 LR rifle and 45 Colt Ruger large frame sixgun.

On the other hand, a good centerfire rifle can be a handy thing to have. You’ve got a HUGE selection up there – I’d seriously consider the 30 WCF – probably in a 94 Winchester configuration. (Grandpa’s ol’ rifle) The 30-30 has taken every game animal on the North American continent – multiple times. It’s not “the end all” of calibers but is still capable of doing everything it ever did do – and better today than 100 years ago since we’ve more advanced choices in bullet design than folks had when it first came out. Ammo’s EVERYWHERE. No self respecting gun shop can consider itself well stocked without a good selection of 30-30 ammo and components are also easy to find and loading tools are common.

And a 22 handgun is a great game getter. You can take small game and even deer size game with carefully placed 22 LR out of a good sixgun. And with a Single Six or other switch cylinder gun you can bend the rules a bit and have two calibers in one sixgun – the 22 WRM allowing you more power for larger animals – even for defensive use against two legged varmints should the need arise. Alan Taylor’s old Single Six with one reamed chamber is another style that has merit. Carry it with one empty chamber which can then have a Mag round slipped in for targets of opportunity.

So, choice two -30-30 rifle and a 22 LR/WRM sixgun.

And then, there’s the good ol’ “common ammo” argument that’s got some good points to it. This third setup is purely hypothetical as I’ve never owned such a rifle – but the theory’s sound.

The 357 Mag out of a carbine length barrel is a fairly powerful round. It ups the ante from sixgun level power to near 30-30 levels of power. Plus, the same rifle can be used to shoot “cat sneeze loads” for small game and other low noise applications. Likewise, a good sixgun in 38/357 makes for a nifty packin’ piece for protection against most threats in the lower 48 as well as offering more “oomph” for small game shooting. So a Winchester, Browning or Rossi 38/357 caliber rifle with a good single or double action small/medium framed revolver could offer excellent service for a wide variety of applications. I’ve loaded more 38 spl than probably all other calibers combined over the years and it’s given me good service over the years. I’ve loaded less 357 (and shot even less of it) but know that it’s been used to take everything on the continent at one time or another.

So, purely hypothetical (since I don’t have them even in storage) would be a 357 rifle/sixgun combo – preferably a small frame Ruger sixgun or a Model 19 or similar S$W along with the handy Model 92 frame carbine.

Choice three – 38 spl/357 mag carbine and sixgun

Of the three? Well, the first combo is my most likely scenario for such a choice as I grew up with a 22 in hand and the 45 Colt would cover the few niches I couldn’t fill with the 22 LR. Probable choice of rifle would be the Winchester 67 as it’s accurate and the one shot capability it has makes you think before pulling the trigger. But there’s some to be said for the stock factory Ruger 10-22, albeit the magazines can be problematic over time. So I guess I named the “only two” combos in order of probability/preference should such a choice ever be made.

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You’d have to get a permit from your local government in order to post a blog.  You’d be limited to the number of blogs you could have.  You’d be limited in the number of words you could print on a given topic.  You’d not be allowed to use any of that “saturday night special” language – nor any of that “sophisticated military style language”.   The right to worship God as you see fit would be regulated and perhaps limited to “one religious service a month”.  You’d have to have a license from the government to use religious language.  You’d be at the mercy of the BPSRO (Bureau of Political Speech and Religious Organizations) and any regulations they’d dream up to further hamper your freedom.  Anyone who wished to collect or sell Bibles and other religious or political books would have to jump through hoops to acquire the Federal, State and Local permits to do so – and would be subject to surprise visits to check that their paperwork was in order and all such dangerous items were properly stored and accounted for.

And the list could go on and on… how long would folks stand for it?  I fear that the time may not be to far distant when such types of authoritarian infringements might become reality.  Already many laws are in place which say that quoting the Bible is “hate speech” and one can actually be punished quite severely for doing so.  “Radicals” who dare question the furtherance of the “homosexual agenda” to not only “normalize” but actually promote as desirable the sodomite lifestyle are already coming under fire -as are those who question the advisability of promoting obviously flawed “sex education” classes in public schools or who oppose the murdering of pre-born infants.  The infringements have started – it’s probably only a matter of time before the First Amendment will be as heavily fettered as the Second.

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Now we have candidates to the presidency of the US who would take away the very freedom by which our nation was founded. We have a candidate who denigrates “fly over land” as “bitter people clinging to their guns and religion”. I stand amazed at the current crop of candidates and can only wonder what happened to the spirit of the men who stood that April morning against the forces of a far off king and set the stage for a grand new nation’s entrance upon the stage of the world. Oh that their spirit may spring once more to life in the hearts of my fellow citizens.

Concord Hymn
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled;
Here once the embattled farmers stood;
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps,
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream that seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone,
That memory may their deeds redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

O Thou who made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free, –
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raised to them and Thee.

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