I see dead people

John Lott's Website: A reason to worry about vote fraud:#links#links

‎1 in 8?

Seriously?

15 percent of voter registrations are bogus?!!!

Why has integrity of voter registrations become a right vs left issue? Isn't the integrity of the ballit box something we should be unified in pursuing? Isn't that at the very core of our representative democracy?

Isn't this a core value for us all? A unifying principle in our e pluribus unum? Or does the wnd justify the means because our cause just or my suffered some injustice so its only fair to get back by any means necessary?

Should maintaining the integrity of the ballot box be a core value for us all? Isn't "one man one vote" a unifying principle in our e pluribus unum? Or does the end justify the means because "My cause is just" or "My suffered past injustice?" So that makes it only fair to get back by any means necessary? Seriously? What is this? Chicago?

Should maintaining the integrity of the ballot box be a core value for us all? If it is not -- can we survive as a representative democracy?

Sales Conspiracy (MEC 650 adjustments)

Just now finished dialing in my 12 ga MEC650 adjustments to run the newer 2-piece AA hulls glitch free. I must have spent 5 or 6 months of futzing with it -- just for a few minutes every few weeks. It's not like I made a concerted effort of it. I just tinkered when I was in the mood and had some time.

Anyhoo, what a bunch of back and forth it requires (at least for me -- and others judging by internet threads)! I suspect it's part of a master plan by MEC to sell more reloading presses. They price 'em cheap enough compared to higher end Posness, Hornady, Dillon et al that you just add multiple machines instead of risking messing with your settings.

When I bought this one used ~6 years ago, it must have been set up for old style AA hulls. It would run the new AA hulls -- mostly.

This is a cutaway view of the old one piece hulls (may they rest in peace).
I just lived with the occasional bulged/wrinkled hull and cheated reshaping some of them in my supersizer (yeah I know, I know -- that's supposed to be a no no). After about 1500 loads that way I finally got fed up and got to reading up on it.

The wads don't sit down in the new 2 piece hulls like the old hulls. They need pressed into that tapered interior cup. Otherwise they don't set at the right depth down on top of the powder column.

Oy. It's a bit of an art form adjusting these -- or at least a secret decoder ring operation. There's a bit of back and forth from one station to another trading off adjustments. I see why so many guys set up for one hull and then leave it. Alone. Forever.
It can be a bit of a mess getting it figured out the first time.


I think I've got it mostly down now and could make a change over reasonably quick if I did it in the next couple weeks. A couple months from now? Yeah, prolly not. I'd almost certainly be mis-remembering stuff and have lost the knack.

The manual only seems to give you about 80% of the recipe. I did a lot of reading on the intrawebz and tried to glean the wisdom from the chaff.
I don't know if this is the right sequence or not but here's generally what I did. There was a bit of back and forth to get to this point.
Ya gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet. Quite a few if you're a bit clueless still on the learning curve.

First off I adjusted the wad pressure to set the wad down in the interior cup in the 2 piece hull. I went to 40 lb's recommended on line but finally backed off to 30 lbs because I was getting a wee crease showing on the hull.

Second I adjusted the crimp starter to leave an opening just a wee bit smaller than a pencil diameter. Mine is the old school style which is adjusted up or down by changing internal shim washers. I ended up working with pennies and dimes. I may go ahead and get the adjustable plastic starter at some point. It has a reversible insert or something for fast change from 6 pt to 8 pt. For now the old school metal 8-pt starter is fine.

Third I adjusted the crimp finishing station to set the crimp depth to match a factory load. I mreasured the depth from the crimp limp down to the fold on a 4 or 5 to get an average depth to set to. I was getting a nice star without any spiral but did have a bit more opening at the center than I liked. I left it for the moment.

4th I raised the final (taper) die a bit. It was set a bit low and was causing the hull to buckle on some shells. This was the main defect that finally got me to try adjusting the press.

5th I went back and experimented with the crimp starter again to try closing down the hole in the crimp center. This is where it got a bit futsy and (I'm sure) my inexperience got in the way. Swapping in different washers/coins, I choked the starter down but that wasn't the answer. I opened it up but that wasn't the answer. I set it back to where it had been leaving just about a #7 1/2 size hole.

Up to this point I had left the mysterious cam on the crimp finishing die linkage alone.
It was near one stop already so I set it to that stop and cycled 4-5 shells through. Nope. Ugly crimps. And so it went for several cycles of tweaking. Change the crimp starter opening, Move the cam. Stare at undesirable result. Then try again. I've got quite a few loads needing me to drip wax on crimp holes before boxing.
I wound up with the crimp starter leaving an opening just smaller than a pencil diameter and the cam back about 30% of it's adjust from one stop.
The trick was finding the right combo of crimp starter depth and cam position that finishes them just about perfect.

Voila!

Good thing I don't do this for a living. /heh/

Yeah, still cheaper than therapy.

Those that have -- and those that will

My General course instructor in A&P (Airframe and Powerplant0 school was Col Johnny Rush (USAF Ret). He'd flown the glorious C-124 Globemaster.

He was the very soul of southern wit and wisdom. On the subject of retractable gear aircraft I recall him saying in his good ol' boy drawl

"There are those that have and those that will -- belly land that is."

Prophetic words at Bagram
Ouch! That's gotta hurt.

Thankfully another favorite Johnny Rush aphorism didn't come into play in this case.

"Smoke curls to the left -- in the Northern Hemisphere."

Projects, we got projects...

...posting to the blog? Not so much.

Picking away at a rifle vise in between things. Lucky if I get 15 minutes a week on it. Out of sight out of mind. Tired of working on longguns laying on a bench top. I'm hoping this will make a more orderly and secure setup: especially for mounting scopes. Yeah, there's a few of those in the project queue to mount/move. I'm putting off starting that scope dance till this wood project is finished. It's ready to drill and mount the over center clamp for the buttstock.


Outside? Yeah, this wall has been a long time in the making. Poured the footing over a year ago. Finally got it formed and poured. It didn't go as well as planned.

What that you say? Home DIY construction foul-ups? Yeah, I'll fess up. Worst ever. Pipe burst inside form. Flooded and blew out form. Down the line my forms buckled and bulged some and I lost my straight form line. Oh the shame of bad prep work cast in concrete for future generations to see and sneer. Unggghhh... There were some exciting minutes there doing damage control.
Yeah, yeah, I know. Never time to do it right. Always time to do it over.

That'll be enough outta you.

It's jazz baby

I posted the below in comments of this post by Lex about aircraft ground crew. I respect the humility in his words -- especially coming from a single seat fighter jock. That appreciation and respect shown by Lex for maintainers wasn't always present in guys I supported in the fleet. More than a few come to mind that prolly are best left unnamed.

One squadron skipper in particular comes to mind. He changed his nametag to "God" at one point and expected to be addressed as such in the squadron spaces back at Miramar (Hanger 6 if you care to know). Looking back, north of 50 myself now, I realize now just how young he was even as an O-5. Where we saw hubris, he probably intended humor. But that's another sea story for another day. Rock on Rocco, where ever you are.

Different airframes allow for more opportunities for in flight teching.

As for the tech styles. I compare it to the difference between classical and jazz. One guy can’t do a thing without every note in front of him. The other guy just needs to figure out the key and then he’ll work it out.

Those calls for an IFT to run to CATTC and talk a ‘FO through a systems troubleshoot were both enervating and terrifying. No pressure. No pressure at all. 4th down baby. You got the ball. ha

Twas both an honor and an albatross to be the AT tagged for the job. Usually came down to coaching them on sequence of tripping, resetting, seating and reseating different modules in hopes of clearing the homo-trons that had gone wrong way on the cat shot and plugged the system up.

I found it helped if I closed my eyes and ignored all the pressed and starched operators and watch officers wondering about the greasy greenshirt before them. /heh/

Tubes, tape drives, ferrite core memory, mechanical tuners, trailing wire antennas and wirewrapped motherboards couldn’t always be relied on to behave after a catstroke. Often what was needed was a swift smack of the hand on a daughtercard to wipe a contact clean. Or a reset of a memory module or A&C. That posed a dilemma though. It’s not like you wanted to give a ‘FO permission to get in the habit of hitting the avionics gear. We had enough equipment damaged in flight by overconfident NFO’s troubleshooting.

Hard to believe a guy could actually twist the rivets out of an IFF cabinet Deutsch data buss connector (they pop off, not twist like a Cannon plug) — but stranger things happened. Even harder to believe an officer and gentlemen would let W/C 210 take the fall for the damage and the downing of an a/c pending replacement cabinet from Bethpage (he fessed up to Tech Rep after cruise). So you made your play based on your judgement of the “O” on the radio. Some would get more help and longer leash than others.

Truth is, often I hardly knew where to start coaching the NFO on the radio. This was jazz not classical music. Improvisation was called for. It was hardly the time or place to admit much troubleshooting in flight was just moving as fast as I could and faking it like crazy. Need to let the crew know you understood their sense of urgency and were “all in” for them and the mission. Sometimes there was nothing to do but make a show of a**holes and elbows and pray mightily that my brain would catch up and the good Lord would give me a revelation (PS 18, “By my God I can…).

Just remember it’s jazz not classical. If you miss a note in classical music it’s a mistake. If you repeat it, confidently, it’s jazz. Faking it baby. Fast as I can.

Movement generates thought.

Might be something in that for daily living too...

Why yes. Yes you do.

HS grad day yesterday and daughter number had this to offer to those in attendance (and those looking on unseen).

An oversight...

Just realized I never got pix of refinished M-1 carbine from the CMP up. The stock had some problems as received. A gunnie friend stuck home recup'ing from cancer treatments asked if he could rework it for me. He was getting cabin fever and had run out of projects.


A steam iron to raise some serious dents, some dowels, acraglass and fiberglass to repair some cracking, bit of stain to match the walnut handguard to the hardwood stock and "Voila!"


I couldn't have done better myself and likely would still have it in the "to do queue."

Here's his little elf showing off the finished work.