The Wandering Minstrel

You can see this and more pro-gun posters at Semper Firearms Training.

Sometime soon, I’m going to get one of these Crimson Trace Lasergrips for my S&W 686 .357 magnum revolver.

According to the Crimson Trace website:

Lasergrips provide you with instant and overwhelming advantages you wouldn’t otherwise have. Laser sights simply help you shoot better, with greater speed and accuracy, which translates into increased confidence—even in tense and threatening scenarios, when hours and hours of vigilant training can disappear in a haze of panic and confusion.

It’s no secret that among those who might consider owning Lasergrips, all levels of skill and confidence are represented. But what’s less understood is that to a person, everyone can become an even better shot with the advanced technology and solid engineering of our ever-expanding array of laser sight products.

Specifications for LG 306:

• Activation - Instinctive Activation (Front)
• Material - Comfortable Rubber Overmold
• User Adjustable - Both Windage and Elevation
• Warranty - 3 Years Complete
• Beam Intensity - 5mw peak 633nm class IIIa laser (maximum allowable)
• Dot Size - Approximately 0.5″ diameter at 50 feet
• Power Source - Two #2032 lithium batteries (included)
• Over four hours of on-time use and a five year shelf life

This notional gadget is about as useful as Congress. But it is interesting.

I couldn’t find much information about Möbius gear trains on-line, so I included an excerpt from the WikiPedia entry for Möbius strip.

The Möbius strip or Möbius band (pronounced may-be-us) is a surface with only one side and only one boundary component. It has the mathematical property of being non-orientable. It is also a ruled surface. It was discovered independently by the German mathematicians August Ferdinand Möbius and Johann Benedict Listing in 1858.

A model can easily be created by taking a paper strip and giving it a half-twist, and then joining the ends of the strip together to form a single strip. In Euclidean space there are in fact two types of Möbius strips depending on the direction of the half-twist: clockwise and counterclockwise. The Möbius strip is therefore chiral, which is to say that it is “handed”.

I recently discovered this - the imfdb.

Warning - this is a highly addictive website for those of us that like flash-bang, firearms and fast-moving action flix.

The Internet Movie Firearms Database (imfdb) is a user driven database of the many guns used in movies, video games, television and anime. In the imfdb’s first 6 months it has been visited by over 100,000 film and gun enthusiasts and has had over 1,000,000 page views. The hundreds of users who have contributed to the imfdb have identified well over 200 models of guns in over 200 movies.

The site was set up last May and conforms to Wiki documentation standards. As a living database, it will continue to evolve with user-contributed data and pictures.

I’m putting a link to it in the sidebar right after I post this. After that, I’m gonna have to explore the database some more.

I don’t know how I could have missed this for so many months.

This is a single-frame extracted from a video of me shooting a .357 magnum at the indoor target range. The rounds were 158 grain magnum and produced some nice flashes along with a very satisfying boom that could be felt as much as heard.

That’s my nicknames for the Glocks I took to the range today. They are seen here after post-practice cleaning and lube. Little Boy is a Glock 26 9mm and Fat Man is a Glock 30 .45 ACP.

I’ve had this revolver for a couple of years now, and the wheel gear is starting to show a little wear. Looks like I’ll be needing a gunsmith one of these days.

Received today from NRA-ILA:

Bush Administration to Propose New Rule Regarding Right-to-Carry in National Parks

Friday, February 22, 2008 Fairfax, Va. - At the request of the Bush Administration and 51 members of the United States Senate led by Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID), the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service prohibition of firearms on agency land will be revised in the following weeks. The National Rifle Association (NRA) is leading the effort to amend the existing policy regarding the carrying and transportation of firearms in National Parks and wildlife refuges.

“Law-abiding citizens should not be prohibited from protecting themselves and their families while enjoying America’s National Parks and wildlife refuges,” said Chris W. Cox, NRA chief lobbyist. “Under this proposal, federal parks and wildlife refuges will mirror the state firearm laws for state parks. This is an important step in the right direction.”

These new regulations, when finalized, will provide uniformity across our nation’s federal lands and put an end to the patchwork of regulations that governed different lands managed by different federal agencies. In the past, only Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Forest Service lands allowed the carrying of firearms, while National Park lands did not.

[more]

This is the key paragraph in a letter from the Secretary of the Interior to Senator Crapo: