Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Buddy of mine has a property of his setup with an alarm. If the alarm goes off, the system calls him. If he’s unavailable, it calls person #2. If #2 is out, it calls person #3. I am person #3. So I was minding my own business the other day and I get a call on my cellphone. It’s the automated alarm telling me something is up. I grab a loaded 870 from the closet and hop in the truck. I get to the property and chamber a round in the 870 and start looking around for broken windows and that sort of thing. Nothing. I let myself into the house, check things, and everything seems fine. False alarm. Not the first time, but you gotta treat each one like the real deal, y’know?

So I press the bolt release on the shotgun and figure I’ll cycle the ammo out of the gun and reload it. (I prefer a particular order of shotgun shells in my magazine tube.) First round pops out and -fail- the next round stays in the magazine. WTF? The magazine follower or spring had bound up somewhere in the tube and was not providing force to feed the rounds down the tube. (This wasnt as failtacular as it could have been. In addition to the 870 I also had my holstered G19 at the time.)

The follower in the tube was this one from Wilson. I’d replaced the factory follower years ago. I went to the range yesterday to test out the shotgun and it kept doing the same thing. I pulled the follower and it had scuff marks all around its circumference. I pulled the spring, removed the barrel, and ran a boresnake (12 ga. size, naturally) down the tube a few times in case the problem was some accumulated grit or something. Nope…same problem after reassembly. Near as I can figure, the follower is snagging or catching at the junction between the magazine tube and the tube extension. (I tried beveling and filing the edges of the Wilson follower in case there were some sharp edges catching….no joy.)

Remington, for some incredibly stupid reason, ran off a batch of their 870s with dimples in the magazine tube that precluded adding a magazine extension. The fix was to simply drill out those dimples. This shotgun isnt one of those 870s. The mag extension is a quality one, not some cheap Chinese crap. I’m fairly confident the problem is the follower. I ordered a stainless steel one (’cause, baby, nothing kills like overkill) from Brownells today and when it gets here I’m hoping it will make the difference. I also need to carefully investigate the junction of the mag tube extension with the mag tube and see if theres any obvious problem there. The nice thing is that I have enough 870s sitting around here that I can swap out parts through process of elimination to narrow down the culprit. I’m 90% its the follower, though.

I’ve another 870 thats been sitting in the bedroom for a few years and hasnt been shot in quite a while. Guess I better check that one out as well.

Moral of the story: it isnt enough to leave loaded guns laying about, you gotta test ‘em preiodically.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

(Note: if you think this is ‘porn’ then you’ve got a pretty messed up idea about what porn is. This is, at ‘worst’, PG-13.)

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

My wife has been daydreaming about ’someday’ possibly, maybe, perhaps retiring to North Carolina when she gets her twenty years in.

Not if they keep this stupid crap up: North Carolina Governor Declares Every Concealed Carry Permit in eastern NC Invalid Due to Hurricane Irene

I suspect there are other states that have nonsense like this on the books. I’m fairly sure Montana ain’t one of them though.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

An LMI buddy of mine got me one of these a few years ago as a gift. They are on closeout from the manufacturer for $15 and they are easily worth that. I use mine as a dedicated gear bag for my CZ bolt gun. I carry spare mags, ammo, cleaning kit, mil dot chart, Chapman set, scope covers, lens cleaning stuff, and a few other necessities in it and have found it to be an excellent piece of kit. For $15 you’d be insane to not get one (or more) to use as range bags, emergency bags, etc, etc.

Some good stuff on their closeout page as well. Made in USA, too. It matters.

(Sadly, I have no connection to the company and, even sadder, they aren’t comping me for this endorsement. Dammit.)

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

The thunder gods that live in the clouds were displeased and threw their lances of lightning at the ground to drive the evil subterranean spirits back into the bowels of the earth….But it sparked a wildfire and things are smokey around the valley here today.

Wait..that whole thunder gods throwing lighting lances is just silly superstition? And yet I’m seeing posts around the blogosphere saying that the earthquake near DC was the displeasure of some god being visited upon us mortals. Yeah….thunder gods are silly but THAT makes perfect sense.

It’s interesting to see Facebook and Twitter suddenly turn into a stream of “Holy crap! Earthquake!” postings.

I’m waiting for the conspiracy theories to start that Obama knew it was coming and thats why he and his family let town.

Montana isn’t immune to earthquakes…we’ve had a couple big ones in the past and I’ve felt a few small ones in my time here, but generally speaking earthquakes arent too big a concern out here. The most seismically active area around here is, unsurprisingly, down Yellowstone ways.

I have some friends and family back east and I look forward to hearing their reports on what happened.

I’m happy to sit here with my supplies and gear and not need any of it.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

By the way, that whole “Preseasoned! Ready to use!” label on the new Lodge cookware? Total BS. Season that puppy.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Plumbing backed up today. Managed to track it from the kitchen sink, down 20′ of pipe crossing my basement and locate it just a foot or two shy of where it meets the main sewer pipe. The good: it was only three feet downhill from the clean-out plug. The bad: there was 20′ of wastewater stacked above the clean-out plug. The ugly: I lost my grip on the clean-out plug.

I have an awesome picture of me covered in what is essentially sewage. But, I got the situation resolved. Or did I? I thought I got it but, no, turns out I hadn’t. Back to the clean out plug and this time I think I got it. I better have, because I am not taking a fourth shower today.

Moral? Twenty feet of waster water in a stack is under a bit of pressure. Snakes need to be at least 25′. Wear goggles. Bleach the frak outta everything. Pour a few buckets of water down the clean-out plug to make sure you got the damn clog.

On the bright side, I think I saved about a hundred bucks from calling in a pro.
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After showering for the third time I went grocery shopping. The spaghetti sauce I stockpile was on sale so I picked up a case. (And, yeah, I can make a dynamite sauce from scratch but when I can buy a jar of sauce for one dollar it makes doing it from scratch kinda pointless.) My eye caught something and, sure enough, the magic shrinking ray has been busy.

Right side is a jar purchased November ‘10. (Yes, I datestamp the food that goes into storage.) On the left, a jar purchased today. 23.9 vs. 26 ounces. Or, put another way, about 10% less. This stuff was on sale for $0.99….or was it? With a 10% reduction in size, compared to the previous size, this jar costs $1.10…ten percent more than the larger jar. Hidden inflation. I would say “coming to a supermarket near you” but, actually, its already there.
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I was going to play with my birthday wok yesterday but the plumbing fiasco screwed it up. I wasn’t going to do a bunch of cooking and then not be able to wash the dishes and have dishes stacked up in the sink for a few days. (At which point the wife points out that leaving dirty dishes in the sink for several days has never been a problem for me before…..) So now that I’m pretty sure I got the thing unclogged (and it bloody well better be) I can fire up the stove and get cooking. Tonight will, ideally, be sliced up pork loin, red & green peppers, onions and a spciy chili sauce served over rice. Ideally. We’ll see.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

A pleasant surprise when I showed up at the shop this morning. A note from UPS saying theyd left a package for me with a neighbor. Hmmm..not expecting anything, but you never know. A box from Amazon! That can only mean one thing – wish list gifties!

And, indeed, it was something off my wish list. A Lodge cast iron wok. Why a cast iron wok? Because when you dump a pound of room temperature (or chilled) chicken into the average cooking vessel the temperature drops considerably. The cast iron, though, has the thermal mass to bounce back in a hurry and keep me on my merry stir-frying way. I like the cast iron for that reason, and also it really is disaster cookware…I can cook on open flame, hot colas, gas range, propane burner, etc, etc.

What do I stir fry? Well, I like stir frying because I love rice and need something to throw on top of it. Stir frying lets me scrounge through the fridge and pull out a few vegetables or fruit, throw in some chopped animal protein, figure out a sauce, and -zap- dinner is served. Here’s what has become my favorite recipe:

This is for stir fry. Five steps:

1) Pick about 3/4 to 1# of your favorite protein. I went with chicken. Thinly sliced. I guess you can use tofu, but if you do, youre a wuss.

2) marinate. Whisk 1 egg white, 1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine or dry sherry, 1 tablespoon cornstarch. Toss with the protein, cover, chill for an hour.

3) 3 cups of vegetables. You pick. Carrots, celery, bell peppers, scallions, onions, mushrooms, bok choy, cabbage, leeks, snow peas, asparagus, plum tomatoes, spinach, broccoli, peas….I went with red & green peppers and onions. Slice em up.

4) Choose a sauce:

Clear Sauce, Sweet/Sour Sauce, Brown Sauce, Oyster Sauce, Spicy Sauce

I went with spicy:
3/4 cup chicken broth
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons ea: soy sauce, rice vinegar, Chinese rice wine/sherry
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons Asian chili sauce

5) Stir-fry it

Heat 3/4″ peanut oil over medium heat. Add protein, slowly stir until opaque. Transfer to plate, discard oil, wipe pan.
Heat pan over high heat, 1-2 min. Add two tablespoons oil, 4 clove minced garlic (2 if using other sauce than spicy), 2 tablespoons minced ginger, 2 minced scallions, and a pinch of salt and sugar. Stir fry about thirty seconds. Add vegetables, starting with ones that take longest to cook. Stirfry until tender-crisp.
Add protein and sauce and stir until sauce is thick and veggies/protein cooked through. (about three minutes) Thin with broth if needed. Garnish with sliced scallions, peanuts, sesame seeds or cilantro.

This worked really well. Its the first Chinese style dish ive ever cooked that when done looked and tasted like it came out of a take-home carton.

I wouldnt have spent twenty minutes transcribing this if I didnt think it was mighty good, so theres the bona fides.

Annnnnnnd….a big thank-you to DG!

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

The Hi-Lift jack arrived today. (A birthday gift from the missus.) This may be one of the few times I have underestimated the size and mass of a piece of gear. I went with the 60″ over the 48″ because I figured the longer one could do everything the shorter one could do, but not vice versa. And that is, I think, a fairly valid argument. What I didnt really think through was just how big this thing is.

Although it would certainly excel at lifting a vehicle to change a tire, that isnt the primary reason I wanted one. My primary reason was for it’s other features – using as a comealong, being able to clamp objects together, to pry objects apart (“jaws of life” style), and that sort of thing. Someday, the ability to move a very heavy obstacle a few feet to the side, lift fallen tree branches, spread apart a door jamb, or otherwise move something that would normally take ten men to move, will be very handy and useful.

I need to thoroughly read the instructions and watch some videos for this thing. I am told that if you arent careful about how you position yourself in relation to the handle, it can snap back and tear your jaw off. That would be ungood.