Monthly Archives: July 2025

Overcoming addiction

Posted on by

Id have to check my records to make sure, but I don’t think I bought any guns in June. Might be the first month in a couple years I didnt buy a gun (or suppressor). My records suggest the last gun I purchased was the SBR lower receiver I used for the stubby BRN-180, and that was in May. Perhaps I’m finally on the downward side of this crippling gun-buying addiction I seem to have developed. Or, more likely, I’ve hit the point of pretty much running out of stuff that I really want enough to actually drop money on.

Speaking of addiction, I finally managed to quit drinking regular sugared Coca Cola. I tend to drink a goodly (and ungodly) amount of the stuff. Probably between 5-7 cans a day. I went to the doctor in January and when she asked how much Coke I drank her professional composure disappeared and she blurted out “Wow!”. And my bloodwork suggested that if I didn’t knock the sugar intake down I might have a future of sticking myself with needles several times a day. So, walked out of the docs office and forced myself to switch to Coke Zero. Tastes horrible, but more palatable than Diet Coke.

I did the math and a can of Coke has 39g of sugar. Multiply by six cans a day and you get 234 grams. A half pound is 227 grams. So, I was sucking back, on  average, a half a pound of sugar per day. Thats three 5# bags of sugar a month. That equated to 840 calories a day just from Coke. Thats 42% of your RDA-suggested daily 2000 calorie intake.

Did switching to the 0-calorie, 0-sugar Coke Zero make a difference? Well, yeah. My A1C dropped by about 20% and I lost about ten pounds. I’ll be getting more bloodwork in October and I expect my triglyceride levels will have dropped from “Thats not supposed to be possible” to “a little high but okay”.

I have no discipline, but as I tell people, I can pretty much do anything when I have a gun held to my head. Staring down the barrel of diabetes was pretty much what it took to make me give up a 45 year habit.

Theres just no way I was going to be like Dan Forrester in ‘Lucifers Hammer’.

The gun addiction only cripples my wallet, the sugared Coke kinda would cripple my health.

And, before you hit the comment button, I am absolutely aware that I should give up the Coke Zero as well. Baby steps, kids.

Buy once, cry nonce

Posted on by

I hate spending money. However, I seem to have come to grips with that because I often spend money on things that a lot of people would cock an eyebrow at. When I can afford to, I try to by the high quality version of whatever it is I am after. “Hey, we have this version made by a company that you’ve never heard of and its just as good for $240 less”….or you can spend stupid money and get the ‘genuine article’.  If I can swing it, I’ll get the genuine article.

The angle of the photo precludes seeing the reticle

Thats my EOTech XPS2 after spending 45 minutes in the pouring rain running snap-shooting drills with my FN. Theres enough water there to pool on the optic to a considerable depth. And I am completely unworried. I know the product is built for this sort of thing and getting wet isn’t an issue for it. Perhaps for a knockoff or lesser product it might be a problem, but, in this case, I clenched up and forked over the money for a product that I believed would meet the rigors of the ‘real world’. And, it seems that it does.

Crises and disasters rarely make appointments, and you go to war with the gear you have, not the gear you want. When I have to beat feet out the door on some dark and stormy night, heaving ammo cans and cases of MRE’s into the back of the truck at 2am while juggling a flashlight and looking over my shoulder, its nice to know that theres some bits of gear that I won’t have to worry about.

Independence Day 2025

Posted on by

“The price of freedom is the willingness to do sudden battle anywhere, any time and with utter recklessness.” ― Robert A. Heinlein

Independence Day and Patriots Day are pretty much the only two holidays I take seriously. And, in my opinion, both (esp Patriots Day) are best observed by exercising your right (and duty) to spend time with your favorite freedomstick and work on your skills. Its also a good time to ruminate on the liberties that we (in theory) have that separate us from those cucks in the UK and Commonwealth who get jail time for ‘disruptive’ Facebook posts or saying the quiet parts out loud.

 

The difference, to me, between the two holidays is that Patriots Day is about remembering the grim reality that sometimes the only solution to a problem comes from blood being spilled and unpleasant choices being made, whereas Independence Day celebrates the success that came from it. Kinda like the difference between Veterans Day and VJ/VE Day.

While you can defend your interests with dad’s .30 carbine or grrandma’s .32 Iver Johnson (which still puts you miles ahead of those metric-using cucks). why would you if you didn’t  have to? And you don’t have to. Don’t think for a minute that if AR-15s and Glock pistols were available 250 years ago that the guys in the field wouldn’t have been all over them like fat kids on ice cream. Most of the world can’t have access to these marvels of modernity..you do. If you don’t have a good semi-auto rifle and a quality pistol (or five), then get out there, show some respect to history, and buy them. The most patriotic thing in this world is an Independence Day sale at your local gun shop. Tell them George sent you.

 

Video – A Hunting Rifle 🦌 to 500yds: Practical Accuracy

Posted on by

“Package guns” are those find-them-in-WalMart type of deals where you get a rifle, an attached scope, and maybe a carry case for a set amount of money. The scope is invariably some variable of the 3-9x variety and the gun is usually a no-frills model. Theyre a nice package for someone getting their feet wet in hunting or for someone on a tight budget. But… is it any good?

The guys at 9-Hole Reviews usually work with military-use guns. In this video, they jokingly and tongue-in-cheek refer to this type of guns use in the ‘documentary’ movie ‘Red Dawn’. You don’t go to war with the guns you want, you go to war with the guns you have. How would a package gun like this acquit itself as an impromptu mid-range rifle? It acquits itself fairly well.

A standard trope of almost every ‘invasion’ book and movie is some non-military dude running around with his hunting rifle nailing invading soldiers from distance. Is it an accurate trope? Well, it’s certainly happened. Is it likely that one woodtick with a hunting rifle is going to materially stop an advance of enemy troops? Beats me. Certainly things come to a temporary halt when someone starts dropping bullets into a dismounted group of soldiers, but it doesn’t seem to stop the advance…it just delays it momentarily. But, hey, Im no expert.

The evidence, at least from this video, seems to support that a good shooter with a Tractor Supply Christmas Sale rifle can pose a reasonable threat at distance. And..doesnt everyone have a gun like this somewhere?