EssOne

What ever made anyone think that crime was going to go totally out of control in just in a few big cities? Once the badguys nationwide get the idea that the cops are compromised nationwide, there'll be hell to pay, and they should sure know it by now.

Even so, I've bought a slew of stuff from them lately and they have had it at my door step within 6 to 7 days of placing the order, and in one case there was a 3 day holiday in there. They are doing a great job in my book.   EssOne

This is a photo of a sundown thundercloud above the Clinch Mountains of Virginia, taken from our back deck in Sullivan County at 8:35 P.M. this evening. It's so beautiful we just wanted to share. EssOne

Y'mean there's no free lunch in Texas either?

Good news for Texans. They've labored over this one for a long time.

I have had a placard for the past six years myself. Let's just say that when I see someone driving as if the rules of civility and courtesy didn't exist and they have a license to exercise two tons worth of rudeness on the hoof, I'm  never surprised to see a disabled placard or tag on the car.....around here anyway.

Is that with or without the "licensed to drive like an idiot" placard? (disabled placard or tag)

In 30 years of traffic law enforcement experience I formed the conclusion that the only thing the average American driver accomplishes by sitting behind the steering wheel is to keep someone from stealing the car when he stops at a stop sign. Aside from that he doesn't accomplish a whole heck of a lot, as you've apparently discovered. If a guy will take that information to heart and realize that "illegal" to most drivers is a sick bird, he'll live longer.

Anyone tried one of these? It looks like either a poor man's ALG ACT unit or a direct competitor with the ALG QMS unit. Only the quality and weight of pull will tell which. http://palmettostatearmory.com/index.php/psa-ar15-pa10-enhanced-polished-trigger.html

If anyone ever asks me why I'm wearing a pistol, I'll be sorely tempted to tell them: "Because I can't find a holster for an AR 15."

It helps me a lot when I run our milmatches inside a partially enclosed. covered range. I prolly wouldn't buy anything until I tried "doubleplugging." Also, if your range is partially enclosed the noise level will be much greater than shooting out in the open. So if you have the option, get out in the open and that will help a lot.

No sir I haven't. Sorry. I've used the MagnaMatic CRT 15 tool, which works fine, but can only be used for two specific applications and is up in the $36-$45 range, which is ridiculous in my book.

Yeah they're on Amazon for $16 too.

Well Yee-Haw, somebody finally came up with a bolt carrier group scraping tool that is well made, works like a champ, and is affordable. It's called the Real Avid AR15 Scraper. I bought a scraping tool four years ago for $45 and choked on the price. But this one only sells for $13 at Primary Arms. All I can say is it's about time!!   This is the manufacturers link that shows how the scraper works and lists the price at $19.95. http://www.realavid.com/ar-15-scraper-tool.html   This is the link to Primary Arms, where the scraper sells for only $12.95. https://www.primaryarms.com/Real_Avid_AR15_Scraper_p/avar15s.htm   I tried this tool last night on the tail of the bolt and the bolt tunnel in the bolt carrier and it really did a good job. FYI   EssOne

Oh yeah! Thank Goodness for soda crackers.

Thank you, Gents. It was my pleasure to write about the trip and an honor to serve in the same army that had liberated the death camps of Europe sixteen years earlier. The Seventh Army was formed on Sicily in 1943 by General Patton and remained a viable field army until the 80's. Sadly it has now been downgraded to about a brigade-size training command.   There were three troop ships that regularly made the trip from New York to Bremerhaven - the Rose, the Patch, and the Buckner. There were others pressed into service during emergencies, but these were the mainstays. I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of troops they took to Europe during the Cold War, but the seventh Army was our largest field army for many years and these ships were the sole providers of replacement troops.   The guys who were on troop ships during WWII and Korea had it a lot worse than we did. I really have to take my hat off to them - whereas we had mess halls and hot meals, the wartime troops frequently didn't and the guys ate C and K rations all the way across.  An uncle of mine who went to France in 1944 said the troops on his ship kept the tablespoon from their mess kits in their shirt pockets along with a P-38 can opener. At meal time they ate canned rations with the table spoon, licked it clean after every meal, and put it back in their shirt pocket.  The guys who went overseas during WWII were often on nothing more than converted cargo ships and boarded via cargo nets and got off the same way, whereas we had gangways and loaded and unloaded at docks.   It was one hell of an experience for an 18 year old kid and I'll never forget it.   Best wishes to you guys in return.   EssOne

Just in case any of you guys were wondering where my avatar came from............................... December 7th is always a thoughtful day for me. Not because of the Pearl Harbor attack, but because December 7,1961 was the day the U. S Army decided that an 18 year old Private named me needed to take a boat trip to Europe. So, on that day 53 1/2 years ago, I hoisted my duffel bag onto my shoulder and walked up the gangway to one of the most memorable experiences of my life – crossing the North Atlantic in a howling December storm on the lowliest of lowly tubs, a troop ship…..the United States Naval Ship General Maurice Rose. “The Rose,” as we called her, was 608 feet long, 75 feet abeam, displaced 9,600 tons empty, and carried 5200 troops in all the luxury of a camping trip to the Kansas City stock yards. First commissioned in 1945, the old ship could reach 19 knots in calm water, but was lucky to do better than 12 knots on our trip because of the ill tempered seas. She was owned by the Navy, operated by the Army Transportation Corps, commanded by Navy officers, had a merchant marine crew, and carried Army troops. What could possibly go wrong with a system like that? "The Rose" was two football fields long. At about 0900 hours that morning we started to move away from the dock and, as we reached the end of a huge warehouse at the end of the dock, our morale suffered its first real blow of the trip – painted on the end of the warehouse in 25 foot high letters was the greeting “WELCOME HOME .” The misplaced sign appeared without warning and had a stunning effect on a ship load of G.I.'s who were already aware that they wouldn't see home again for a long, long time. It got awfully quiet on deck until the sign disappeared from view, and it would be the last time any of us would be on the open deck until we were completely across the Atlantic Ocean. Note the size of the men working at the water line. Not long after the sign disappeared, the fun started in earnest. As soon as we cleared New York harbor we ran afoul of a nasty, boiling Atlantic winter storm that would royally knock us about for the next nine days. For the entirety of the trip to Southampton, England, and then to Bremerhaven, Germany, “the Rose” rocked, rolled, dove, climbed, and vibrated its heart out. We were in seas so heavy that the screws often came out of the water and flailed about in the air until the ship righted herself again. The violent shaking and vibrations of those huge screws churning the air made even the most stout hearted among us wonder where the devil we’d left our life preserver! Naturally the weather decks were off limits to us for the entire trip, and on the one occasion when a crewman opened a door looking out to the deck, we were looking UP at the Atlantic Ocean. I didn’t look again until we reached the English Channel – once was enough for me. Trying to eat while the ship was diving and rolling around in one trough after another was often a very humorous experience. The tables in the mess halls were long, rectangular affairs coming out of the sides of the ship and were anchored to the floor. They were covered in Formica and accommodated about a dozen men seated on each side of the table. We soon found out that stainless steel mess trays slid like crazy on the slick Formica every time the ship rolled, and usually wound up several persons away from where the sliding had started. Desperation being the mother of invention, some brilliant soul found that if one inserted a wet napkin between the tray and the Formica, the tray stayed put – but the food kept right on going. Oh well, try, try again. She wasn't nearly as big on the inside as she was on the outside. The most disconcerting part of the voyage happened as we stopped in calm water off of Southampton, England to pick up a pilot for the North Sea part of our voyage, and to conduct a lifeboat drill. Well, I guess that’s what they called it, because it took the merchant marine crew a full half hour just to get the first life boat off of its davits! A Special Forces Sergeant standing next to me watching the comedy of errors expressed all of our feelings when he blurted out loudly: “Boy, if this tub ever decided to sink, we’d have about enough time to say Our-Father-which-art-in-blub-blub-blub!” The frightening part is that he was absolutely right. All things have to come to an end, and our trip ended at the Port of Bremerhaven, West Germany on December 16th. The trip through the English Channel had been quite calm, but the overnight sail through the North Sea was the roughest of the whole trip. And believe me, by this time we were bloody tired of “rough.” On arrival we were no longer accustomed to walking on a surface that wasn’t pitching and rolling, so we staggered and stumbled off the ship to the waiting trains like the biggest bunch of drunks in history. It took most of us a week to learn how to walk again without lurching all over the place and grabbing anything we could find to steady ourselves. It had been one heck of a ride. Mercifully, the Army flew me home when my overseas tour ended in 1964. The trip took nine hours instead of “the Rose’s” nine days. And I didn’t miss the old girl one bit. Epilogue “The Rose” was named after Major General Maurice Rose, United States Army, who was the only American general officer killed during the fighting in western Europe in World War II. He was killed in Germany in the spring of 1945. The General Maurice Rose plied the Atlantic route from 1950 to 1965, completing more than 150 round trip crossings between New York and Bremerhaven. She sailed the Mediterranean run for a while, and then spent her final years of active duty ferrying troops to the Far East from the Pacific coast. The old ship was mothballed into the reserve fleet in 1967, decommissioned in 1997, and they scrapped her in 2000. I guess she was a pretty good ship. After all, how many people get to look UP at the Atlantic Ocean and live to tell about it? The rose's biggest customer - the United States 7th Army. Looks suspiciously like my avatar, huh? EssOne

My great grandfather served in the Civil War in the 9th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, which was essentially wiped out at Shiloh. After the war, the 9th's Chaplain wrote the wartime history of the Regiment. The Chaplain was a Major Marion Morrison. He was John Wayne's grandfather.

http://palmettostatearmory.com/index.php/ptac-lower-safe-fire-retail.html   "These forged lowers are quality made using material is 7075-T6 and are marked "CAL MULTI" to accommodate most builds.  Finish is Black Hardcoat Anodize per MIL-8625 Type 3 class 2."   "PTAC lowers are duty grade lowers.  As such, they may have small cosmetic imperfections that do not affect functionality."

One time back in  the late 60's my boss and I went shooting to zero our rifles before a big deer hunt to Utah. He had a beeeyouuuuutifuuuull scoped Prewar Model 70 .270 and I had a M1895 Chilean Mauser 7x57mm with click adjustable peeps on it and nothing more done to it. I had bought the rifle for $29 brand spanking new and he had a fortune in his Model 70. The old Mauser shot the pants off of his Model 70. Go figger. I didn't get too many weekends off after that. :pleased:

Yeah, I ordered some stuff on Friday and the delivery date in the email is Thursday of the following week.

In the past two days I've made several orders for abunchastuff from Palmetto and every bit of it shipped within one or two days. Things are looking up I'd say.

Preacher's kid wife with big honkin', all-steel CZ 85B 9mm - ten yards, standing, two hands - 35 rounds fired 13 DAO, 10 DA/SA, 12 DA/SA/SA. Score was 174 of 175 possible points on this particular target. Preachers kid wife is 67 years old and had not shot in the past year. I be rat proud of her. Hoo sez women need itty bitty guns?

Amen, yea, and verily. If I kept all the paper the NRA has sent me since I first joined in 1967 I could save five acres of trees in Oregon.