Jonnin

critical defense is mild compared to buffalo bore, but its defense ammo, its hot compared to cheap S&B plinker ammo. Very pretty, the big 380s are mild and fun to shoot, looks a lot like the beretta 380 which I have shot and really like.

I think the most useful raid purpose is to keep a web server up 24-7, rather than preserve against data loss it is used to reduce/eliminate downtime (along with other tricks, such as physically seperate backup servers and so on). Those are often hot swap drives so you do not even turn the machine off to fix it. Second most useful thing about a raid is for speed, in disk intensive applications. For a home PC, raid zero is fine, and backup to a portable usb hard drive, or no raid at all and backup the same way. I wouldnt fool with raids at home for backup/data safety, just copy the files now and again -- a batch or script file with 7zip to get the important stuff and a full mirror once in a blue moon is sufficient. The speed benefits of raid0 are questionable, so its just not something I can recommend to most users.

Give everyone over 18 the right, and take it away only for clear cut reasons, such as conviction of a violent crime. Lots of temporary loss of rights, such as under the influence of anything (legal or not), restraining order against, and so on. 4 of 5 psych/mental doctors selected at random give the same diagnosis for the person and agree the person is a danger to self/others (temporary, re-eval yearly at patient's request). More than 5 individuals have reported the person as a threat (prompts investigation). Those sorts of things. The only issue is keeping a database up to date. I know you said it would not work, but it has worked already. Open carry states have this work every day. Concealed or open is no different -- everyone who wants to be is armed in those states and the problems yapped about by the anti gunners have not happened. At the end of the day the constitution says we can keep (own, is how I see this word in this context) and bear (carry on one's person) arms (anything from a knife or stick to a machine gun and more) in the militia (anyone over age 18 under one of the current definations, or anyone who could either be drafted or volunteer for military service). Anyone who says otherwise agrees to limitations on the right to vote, free speech, and the rest --- if they agree to that, they would agree to a new law that in order to vote you have to go through the same hoops that are required to purchase a handgun!

It depends on what you want to do with it, what caliber it is, and more. That said most of mine are sighted in at 100 yards or so, my 3 gun AR is at 75 yards to give decent performance up close and on the long shots. There is no magic answer for a "500 yard clear cut" and "dense woods" both -- you may want to have 2 guns in that case. A fancy scope can adapt for such a wide range, but it takes some time to learn to do that with confidence. "Tatical" (whatever that means) scopes with no-tools-needed adjustments and mil-dot reticles for example, the mil dot lets you fine tune and the knobs let you set up for the distance you are current at.... that is not much of an answer.

virus scanners that work on a booted PC suck, I have not seen one that really works well to date. Take the drive out and mount it into a clean system as a slave drive, and scan it from there with a high quality product, if you have access to all the stuff needed to do that. You will find your virus if that is the issue. If the drive is going bad, it should tell you, modern PCs with modern drives tell you if the disk is acting up, or many of them do. And you can run the old stuff, check for bad sectors, scandisk, chkdsk, whatever it is called now, I use it and still forget the new name. We are required to grind off the media from the platters when we destroy a disk. Overkill, really. I have some good magnets from older disks though.

I am using the missouri bullet company 44 sp slugs which are $40 or so for 500 and shipping is with the PO boxes so get more them to fill a box. Works great in both revolver and semi auto, no significant lead buildup but I am loading them light, just enough to cycle the semi. I can't imagine that cooking your own is a lot cheaper than buying -- you may enjoy it, but the savings are probably smallish.

I use the online manuals, and cross reference them. And, as I use lee dies mostly, they all came with a small set of data for each caliber as well. Between these sources I havent needed a true manual. Most of the powder companies have a manual online, use those, avoid the "favorite recipe" sites or only use those as verification.

The mags and fit for them vary a lot. Wife *had* to have the darn pink tatical solutions 10/22 and it would ONLY work with the 10 rounder that came with it, finally bought an official ruger brand 25 round mag that worked but what a hassle. They do not seem to have a true feed ramp, but rely on the mag to fit just so, and if the mag does not fit just so, it causes no end of problems.

The expensive part of 308 sized rifles is the bullet. If you use cast lead cheap stuff, you can save a ton but you have to make them weak --- great for the range or hunting up close, but not tapping the potential of the cartridge, it is about like a 30-30. If you want full power loads you have to buy jacketed bullets and they cost a lot (relative). I think its about $25 per 100 for decent quality jacketed rounds, and if you reused your brass that is the bulk of the cost, primer and powder are not too bad. so $250 for 1k bullets, if you use less than 70 grains of whatever powder, $25 for a pound of powder or less, and $30 for 1k primers, or about $300 per 1000 ($15 per box of 50). All that is from what I just went thru learning to do .308 and 7.65, which is more or less the same thing as 30-06 apart from the brass. 44 mag is easier than a rifle round, straight pistol cases cut out a couple of steps and hassles. Using lead 44 special slugs and medium loads, you can make those for really cheap, easily under $10 per 50. As with the rifle, if you use jacketed rounds it costs a lot more, but unlike the rifle, you can make full power loads with lead bullets for the 44.

Don't push so hard, should be able to tell before you ruin a primer, then set them aside for a small primer run. Same for the crimped, if they won't go, stop pushing. I find that about 75% of the crimped cases will take a primer without excessive force, by the way. You shouldnt have to sort them by hand, let the press tell you.

Very nice. That was some pricy junk ammo for sure! This is as good a place as any for my cz update -- they finally came in and the bottom line was the rami cannot be made like I wanted it. It can be left handed, or it can be single action, but not both because the 2 frames (metal vs plastic) are different and only the metal frame can accept the SA trigger and only the plastic one has ambi safety. The custom shop was very nice about it and offered a variety of things we could do but I decided to just leave it be, it shoots well and yet another right handed gun won't hurt me, but it will not become my carry piece. The custom kadet is awesome, perfectly balanced and very accurate. On both, the triggers cannot be made perfectly slopless because doing that messes up the disconnector/trigger reset, but they get close and its better than average at the end of the day. The rami put 10 shots touching at 20 feet, I have not exercised it much yet. The kadet can make them all touch at 25 yards if locked in a rest. We are happy with them!

230 gr with power pistol is in the neighborhood of 7 - 7.5 grains. Start with 7, it should be a decent load.

If you are seriously thinking about it, consider one of the pistols that are rifle caliber which are legal on your HCP, they are basically semi auto rifles with a shorter barrel and no stock, you can get them in AK an AR platforms for sure, and desert eagle makes a revolver in a variety of calibers like 30-30.

This, if you were going to do it, use a fresh one. One sheet would probably do 3 guns, and they are cheap.

That is a good plan, and as you said esp. if it is in bad shape to start out. Though I would recommend everyone have a decent set of sharpening stones, I guess not everyone does. I can't stand a dull knife, so I have always had a full set of rocks.

Yes, you can use a red dot. They are pretty good at 100 or less yards, much farther and you need an expensive one as the dot size vs the target become incompatible.... for example, with a 30 power scope, you can SEE a dime and hit it at 300 yards, but with a red dot sight, the dot at 300 yards covers up a good inch circle of target or more, making it difficult to shoot precisely. The pricy ones have very small dots that help this issue. For typical hunting ranges a red dot is fine, just take extra batteries out in the field. IMHO a scope that uses no batteries is better for hunting. BSA makes a nice cheap series of tatical scopes that have knobs instead of screw adjustments... in the $200 range I think. Several of the middle grade tatical scopes have that type of adjustment. Bore sighting is pretty bad, I have had it done 5 or 6 times and its usually on a poster board at 100 yards. My advice to sight in is to buy poster boards, get close enough to HIT the board, then move back and adjust. Ususally its inside the 5 inch ring with 10 shots or less and one box of 20 should have it in the bullseye every time. So start as say 25 yards, get the left/right close and the up/down to within 5 inches then move it to 100, it should be a quick up/down fix and a minor left right fix to finish up.

The original military 223's used in 'Nam had a dismal rep & got a few of ours killed, I guess that was the m16 original design? I have never owned a bad rifle, closest would be the mini 14 we had as it was very difficult to reload and after it broke in, the accuracy opened up from decent groups to "smoothbore" quality in a hurry. It never failed to go bang, and the action was nice, but it was definately sub-par.

The small 9mms usually have worse recoil than any 380 --- virtually identical size and weight with twice the energy?? Gun design is the key for any caliber, unfortunately a number of popular small guns were not engineered to ease the recoil factor, making several of the small 380s and most of the small 9s rather unpleasent. A cz83 380 has less recoil than any of the glocks short of the giant 1911 sized models, while any of the kel tec copy pistols has more.

"legal tender for all debts, public and private" .... methinks this idea will not go over too well.

How carefully did you measure it, or is it stamped with the caliber? There are a number of slightly larger calibers that you might use to craft ammo, between 7.6 and 7.8 mm.

BP shotguns, original civil war and pre civil war era, are easy to find... but you need to know if you can shoot it or not. A lot of them have barrels that were made with a questionable process which can lead to internal rusting -- looks fine inside and out, but comes apart when fired. Most are just for looks. I have a beautiful original one, and you see them at gunshows, esp the big yearly civil war show (if that still happens?). But if you want a shooter, get a replica is my advice, or be very very careful which one you buy.

The LCP is a DAO (double action only --- which is a dumb name created from history). The first guns were single action: you cocked the hammer and the trigger released it. Later double actions allowed either the same, or the shooter could pull the trigger a long way with a lot of force to pull the hammer back with the trigger. DAO guns ONLY have this type of pull, every time you pull the trigger it lifts the hammer and drops it. This makes for a long, hard trigger pull. The bersa is a double action, but it is also a semi auto. So, every time the slide comes back from the recoil of the fired round, it cocks the hammer for you. So the first time you shoot it in a session, you thumb the trigger back or use the long "double action" pull to lift the hammer. The follow up shots work like a single action, a light short trigger pull drops the already cocked hammer. The bersa is likely to be easier to control: the shorter single action follow up shots mean you will not "pull" the gun off target in the process of using the trigger, the heavy build will prevent recoil from pulling your shots off target, and the combined effect will be the ability to shoot defensively (rapidly, or double taps, at a shortish range) very cleanly. The LCP will take a lot more muscle to control and more skill to keep it on target and very strong fingers to fire it rapidly. The sig is single action only, a very short and light trigger pull lets you empty the gun faster and if it fits your hands, it is very easy to control, something about it has very light recoil (good/bad designs can reduce or increase recoil). The sig is my favorite, but all these (and their relatives from kel tec, walther, and so on) have their fans. The important thing to take away here is how the different trigger designs (there are 6 or 7 of them if you include tradmark names for the same exact things) change the feel and shootability of the gun.If you want lower recoil, get a heavier gun, and not the DAO. DAO does not have any recoil "converted" into the hammer spring, which is part of the way recoil is absorbed in a semi auto. Also a double stack, with a wider grip, will spread the recoil out rather than punish one narrow strip in the seat of your hand. 380 is less than half as potent as 9mm BUT the energy of the cartridge is a very small part of the recoil equation. I have shot a wimpy litle .25 that had more recoil than most of my 9mms (mine are large & steel though!). The micro 9mms are brutal with a defense load, worse than my 44 mag shooting a bullet twice as heavy.

380 ammo is pricy. The 9x18 caliber is the exact same thing, but 1/3 the price (if you are willing to order online), and the guns are well made and inexpensive. A makarov or cz82 would be a great first handgun, for $400 or so you could have the gun, 1000 rounds of ammo, and probably a holster, extra mags, and other random accessories, cleaning rod or whatnot. My favorite 380 is the sig p238 but its expensive. Next up would be a bersa, those are very nice.

There are a lot of small 9mm. Most of the really small ones are DAO, but there are some single actions and double actions and trademark actions as well. A very good, cheap 9mm is the taurus 709 slim. If you have a lot of money, a colt defender or new agent are nice. Beretta is about to release its nano, which is their take on it, seems to be what a single stack glock would be. The cz rami is a very nice gun, even if the custom shop hosed mine up the stock gun is great. Those are just a few. The micro 9mm is very much in style and the companies are working hard to make them smaller, slimmer, etc. The lcp offends me, I like ruger but stealing a current, fairly recent design is lame. At least the lc9 is slightly different from the kel tecs ... the lcp is an exact copy part for part.

I think you are making a big deal over a small issue... if you picked out something you like the most, a smith can put sights on it for you and that way you can get whatever type you like, for a little more money. If you are not set on the gun you picked out, there are a number that still have iron as others have said.