redmanfixit

Movie wisdom. I know that sounds like an oxymoron. Movie wisdom. First time I ever saw that phrase was in Mad Max. About the eleventh time I saw it. Just before Jessie runs the kids to town to get Ice Cream, leaving Max at a greasy little gas station in the outback, talking to a greasy mechanic about a tire repair. There is a sign in the background that says: "Speed is only a question of money....how fast do you wanna go??". This a universal truth of the human experience, especially in light of the reduction of money to it's essence. A way to exchange time. Or concentrate it. Everyone's time is not equally valuable. You can come up with LOTs of examples. Consider money as a lever against entropy. Metaphorically speaking, we pile stuff up here and there wherever we go. We become distressed when it comes un-piled. We think up increasingly clever ways to help it stay piled up. It takes more and more time to pile it up. (You want it when??? Oh man that's gonna cost ya!!) How are you "spending" your time?? Time is Money!! Wisdom is where you find it. Learn to listen for it. It sounds like angel's laughter or really nice wind chimes.

What Flex said. +1

Springfield Operator. Their customer service is excellent. They treat you like a regular person, are polite and helpful. They often go out of their way to "make it up" to you if something does go wrong with any of the many excellent guns they make. I really like their 1911's......There are so many really good ones in that price range. I've dragged people to big gun stores for " fondling" sessions. One or another will call out to you. It'll be just right. Go to matches, take some .45 ammo with you and ask if you can try someones gun out after a match. Find out what really nice, helpful people participate in this sport!!

I recently had a critical change of posture in the case of "having a REALLY nice 1911 to shoot". I was experiencing a bit of jealousy, as two of my pals have Wilson CQB's they run in SS. So Nice! Guess I was sort of looking out of my naval....so to speak. I'm setting up a Colt Gold Cup I got a VERY long time ago, for SS USPSA. I first began this sport in the late 70's and had this gun because I always wanted a really nice 1911 A1. It's just not set up for modern shooting sports so I'm refitting it with modern bits and pieces more suitable for the games we play here in the future. The Techwell is very nice! Extremely clean and fits beautifully. I bought the carry size magwell and to me it looks huge. I'm kind of a "mud in the stick" and tend to stay with pretty much plain 1911's for competition but I'm really liking the way this project is going. Once it's finished I will post photo's of it. I first saw this type of grip/magwell combo in a post on the Sig forum that my pal Hanexp pointed me to. The particular thread was on a Hogue version but you have to go to Hogue directly for them, I think. My Techwell set came from Brownell's. Hope this is of help!

Hey Everybody!!! Don't ignore the potential of a properly fitted progressive add lens!! (No line Bi-focal) And also, remember the simple fact of physical optics, if you try to shoot in darkly tinted lenses as a "more experienced" (read old person) the aperture effect will mess with with you more than a younger shooter that still has strong accommodation reflex. A clear or light brown lens will give you radiation protection, sharper vision and impact resistance (soda lime glass is UV opaque and, chemically tempered is highly impact resistant, polycarbonate and CR-39 both have UV absorbers in them to protect the molecules of the material from photo-degradation) as well as allowing you to have much greater depth of field because of your pupil being constricted. At arms length, the sights end up being in the "Intermediate" range of a progressive lens. Small head adjustments will allow the sights to be in sharp focus. The money you spend on "Flap & Zap" might be better spent on good shooting glasses. (NO permanent side effects, for one thing. If they don't work the way you want, take em' off!!) You MUST have eye protection anyway! Your greatest difficulty here will be to find a competent Optician. Here in the future, they are as hard to find as a really good Gunsmith, actually harder. "We" (shooters) spend a TON of money on ever cooler gizmos, spiff finishes, doo dads and thingamagigs for our guns. If you can't see you can't shoot well. The equipment for good vision needs to be collected and assembled with as much care as you would spend setting up a gun for competition. What you saw as far as reactions from other patients in the Doc's office gets into some of the general problems we have in our civilization, at a fundamental level. We are collectively kept in a constant state of fear, simply because fearful, anxious and neurotic people are easy to manipulate and squeeze money out of. This is an inevitable iteration of the character of those aspects of human nature observed in the "Peter Principle". There are only 3 kinds of people in the world, (yah I know another generalization, stick with me here) Sheep, Wolves, and Sheep Dogs. Shooters as a group tend to be more of the Sheep Dog type. (This metaphor is a reference to a speech given at West Point, to a graduating class, if you haven't seen it I'll post it.) The sheep in the Doc's office displayed a natural reaction to seeing what she thought was a Wolf. Ignorance is the basic coin of domination, fear is the whip. Encourage people to banish ignorance & fear, it is a wonderful gift. ALL human relationships are about power and control.

We have our issues in our tissues! Your psycho-emotional state will manifest in your body. The suggestions on breathing are right on. One of the fastest ways to change the character of the mental state is to change the breath. If you will include in your pre-shooting routine, a moment to observe your "condition", (shoulders tight, jaws tight, forearms tight, facial muscles drawn tight??) and with each out breath, let those structures relax. Simple stretches, don't forget to breath. The excitement doesn't go away, the anticipation doesn't diminish, you change your relationship with it and direct it more to your own purpose. It really IS a Quantum Universe and Consciousness really does participate in the creation of material reality. The secret to immortality is not a fountain somewhere. It's easier than that!!! Don't forget to breathe!! Nuthin' to it.

Young Gentleman, Thank You for the Service you are doing for us all! Glad to hear of service people in this sport. It is MY wish that every American Armed Forces member be a bad guys worst nightmare. I don't know all the rules and regs of guns in England, but please don't forget Airsoft gas guns. They will give you hours of good practice and they're cheap to run. I'm glad to hear you went to the CO State Champ meet right off the bat! One of my shootin' Buds, David Anderson won SS there. I hope to attend that match this year and I hope I get to shake your hand. Good Luck, be safe! Have Fun!!

I really didn't want to say anything.....I thought I was the only one that had made that mistake dj When I was a lad in the Navy, as I had a steady hand and all, I was the guy they woke UP on watch to sew UP the young Marines who were confused on this point. Doctor said I was good for two layers of fascia before I had to wake him UP. Many not so young Marines here in the future with my work on em'.

Twice? Let's see: 1. Felling and Limbing 2. Skidding 3. Bucking 4. Loading 5. Unloading 6. Splitting 7. Stacking 8. Hauling some in 9. Burning That's 9, 10 if you have to carry your chainsaw any distance to the trees. Ol Ben Knew to keep it simple! But YA, yer right! I like chainsaws and splitters too. INDUSTRIAL!! That's for me. Better than a membership to a health club....no fungus foot...lots of fresh air!

I have an XD9 5". I use it in production for IPSC and SSP in IDPA. Springer Precision trigger job (very Nice) is all I've done to it. If I may steal a phrase from Glock. It runs with monotonous reliability. Several of my shooting pals run different configurations of the XD (.45, 9mm, .40 are most common) sub compact and 4", they all run great. Not a bad idea to feed them a little bad ammo once in awhile to get some practice clearing malfunctions!

Benjamin Franklin pointed out that one of the great advantages to splitting the wood you would heat your home with is that "It warms you twice".

My wife and I shoot 9mm and .45ACP a bunch. I have run 5k of .45 with Wolf primers and around 4k of 9mm with Wolf so far and they run very nicely. Powder Valley seems to be nice folks. I shoot whatever components I can get that give me reliable performance. If you buy the Blazer Brass, at least you'll have a bunch of nice once fired brass to reload when things shift again!! " The real purpose of Asana practice is to learn to maintain balance when you have your feet grounded in shifting sands!" This is a GOOD time to do Warrior poses!

I run an XD 9mm Tactical 5". Ditto on the mags dropping free. I like this gun. I also like Scott at Springer. Nice trigger parts!!!

It is possible to train your eyes to do some interesting things if you are willing to work at it a bit. I taught myself to be what is called an "alternating suppressor" in the eye biz. It came from using a monocular instrument (one eyed) at work. The images were impossible for my brain to fuse, so I learned to ignore the image I didn't need to see. Since I also had to look at a readout near the center of the instrument out of the optical axis of it, I would "switch off" the eye I was using to focus the device and read information on the readout. Back and forth!! If you squint one eye shut or are unable to close one eye without really clamping it shut, it eventually effects the focus of the open eye and it's possible for your vision to become blurry. So here's what to try. A rifle scope is pretty handy for this, as it is by design monocular. A pair of binoculars will work for this as well, just don't hold both eyepieces up to your eyes. Looking through your telescope with both eyes open, one eye looking through the instrument, you will find most times that visual confusion results as your brain tries to use it's binocular focusing control loops to fuse the two images of very different sizes. We do this by disposition from shortly after birth, if you watch babies early in their development, you see them go through a period of visual confusion as they learn to track both eyes on an object. Also as they try to earn to focus from near to far, which is called accommodation. So back to the telescope. The non dominant eye is looking outside the telescope trying to figure out what to do with the image falling on the retina and those reflexes become useless, thus the visual confusion. With the free hand, (assuming you have one free) cover the eye not looking through the eye piece, leaving it open and relaxed. Repeat this. Being able to ignore the image you don't wish to use is handy for a rifleman as it allows you to acquire a target more quickly. If you are looking at the target and you bring a scoped rifle up you will more naturally point at the target. The red dot sights on an open gun or the ACOG type sights take advantage of this. You find the ACOG's are in lower powers, 1x to maybe 2.5x, more magnification than that and the advantage is lost for many because of the difference in image sizes again, makes it impossible to fuse them. At first you will find this more or less disturbing. People that are inclined to motion sickness may feel nauseous. If you persist, looking through the telescope, both eyes open and concentration your attention on the eye you wish to see with (visualizing an energy stream, I think another writer said) you will with time find it easier to "turn off the eye" you don't want to see with. Again concentrate on the eye looking through the telescope, both eyes open and relaxed. Cover the "outside eye" concentrate then move the cover away. The gentleman with the "lazy eye" very likely did this as a child as a result of being Anisotropic. Which is an expensive word for saying that his two eyes were very different in one being possibly very near or far sighted and the other for example being more or less normal. The common theme here is the brain being unable to fuse the two images (remember the baby) and so chooses to ignore the least valuable one. In Yoga practice there are many exercises that strengthen the visual system. Pencil push ups, as mentioned previously by another writer in this thread, are what one of the old exercises is called now. It is to strengthen the accommodative action. Someone who is Presbyopic (needs bi-focals) can use this to force near vision sharpness against the resistance of the crystalline lens in the mature (old) eye. There is a chance though that the lack of flexibility will cause the eye to be sluggish in return to distance vision. Troublesome for our sport. I wear a "no-line" bi-focal. These work very well if they are properly fitted. They will allow small movements of the head up and down to bring the sights into pretty good focus as the gun is extended at arms length. Since most of our matches are shot in daylight, the reduced size of the pupil increases apparent depth of field, like a pin-hole camera so it's pretty sharp if the protective lenses you wear are clear. The color that will provide the sharpest vision is in the yellow range. Brown works next best. The color of the sights is important. The sun is rich in sodium and iron and magnesium. These elements at the temperatures in the solar atmosphere, emit strong yellow, and green light. The sodium emission is strongest. Our retina's are most sensitive in yellow and the eyes transmit this wavelength most efficiently, green is next. Yellow fiber optic front sights work well for the older eye with green next. Hope this information is helpful. I hope it will make gear decisions less complicated! Please forgive the IDPA "street Nazi". He means well. Right now, the sights on an open gun aren't too practical for concealment or crawling in the mud. After all IDPA is more about surviving a gunfight then "merely" speed and precision. (As if speed and precision would not help in a gunfight!!) I don't want to start an argument, I shoot ALL these games because they are all valuable. If I were with a combat team or in executive protection, some of what works for USPSA could get you or your principle killed, so I might not vary my training as much as I do. The adrenaline cascade response is real, and they have a point even if pushed a little far!! They really want you to practice with your CCW gear.

" I'm going to sell this gun to a bud to make place for the other guns, since in Italy we can only own six "sports" guns!" For starters, My thanks to you for reminding me and possibly others that may follow this thread about some of the freedoms we enjoy here. I am a .45 ACP fan and I shoot single stack IPSC as well as IDPA. The main reason reason that many of the shooters I have spoken with choose .40 seems to be recoil. There is the capacity point as well but most of the folks I have spoken to feel that .40 allows them to get back on target quicker than .45. Of course it is possible to tune a gun to shoot any combination of propellant and projectile that lets you make major PF, in most any caliber that is practical for the sport. Felt recoil and target reacquisition are the two reasons offered to me as often as not when folks I shoot with are expounding on the advantages of .40 over .45. It seems that, for me, my hand must be about the size of John Browning's as most of his designs and those that are like his, fit my hand as if they were made custom for me. Hope this is of help. I also hope you have fun with your new equipment. There's just something about a 1911 A1 in .45 ACP.

The extractor on an XD lays up against a cut in the slide that is parallel to the direction of travel of the slide. This contact point is a fairly wide flat spot. I have found with my 5"XD that "gradu" gets in there and forms a nice compact little cake which reduces the contact the extractor hook has with the case rim. It's easy to clean out once you find it and that little bit of stuff seems to matter. I hand load 9mm with Xtreme plated 124 gr over 4.2gr of bullseye. The gun runs like a watch. Very accurate and it will generally knock steel right over. Only trouble I've had with feeding or extraction with this gun was with cast lead bullets. They fed fine but I did have extraction failures. Still working on it. I don't have the OAL handy but I set my die with a Winchester white box round as the ogive was almost identical. Perhaps the recoil impulse with the other propellants is softer. I tend to stay with older cheaper propellants because.......um well....uh... I"M older and cheaper! I know how they work because I've used them lots!! Don't know if this'll help at all.

If you hand load, you MUST have a little mad scientist in you! If you goof around with your propellant (use older, cheaper, slower burning types) you can keep the tendency to melt the base of the bullet under control. Less smoke and less toxic. The current Lee Modern Reloading has a TON of really good information on bullet casting and lead alloys to keep the hardness up to the velocity. Mr. Lee is a smart -OLD GUY- and has been doing this for a lifetime. He has opinions based on experiment and sound engineering. The book is inexpensive. There is a bullet caster in St. John Kansas by the name of Tommy. The company is Leadheads Bullets. Web address is www.proshootpro.com. I have run a BUNCH of thousands of his bullets through my 1911 .45 ACP and my wife's Hi-power 9mm. With no leading troubles whatsoever. I have also run them through my Glock 21SF also with no leading problem. I have had MANY cranky old Marine and Army armorers tell me that lead is more accurate than jacketed as long as you're not driving them to screaming magnum velocities. Tommy SWEARS you can run his bullets to jacketed ammo velocities and have no leading problem. As far as I can tell it's true but I don't build really hot ammo. On this forum there is reference to a bullet casting machine that is a real marvel! This is the web link to photobucket http://s121.photobucket.com/albums/o213/jmorrismetal/. This guy makes cool shooting related stuff. He is the guy that posted photos of his home made caster on this forum, REALLY cool!! As far as getting lead goes, there are tons of it in the berms at most shooting ranges and it's not difficult to recover. Use a dust mask and wash your hands. 2 or 3 people working together can easily get several hundred pounds in a few hours with simple tools and some screens. You can usually do the berm some good too, so the range is improved. You're going to move the dirt anyway. All the leftover jacket material and dross can be sold to metal recyclers and the money used to buy alloy metals. Babbit metal is commonly available and has a high tin content to harden and improve the castability of the alloy. Buy a cheap cast iron dutch oven and use that turkey fryer burner that's getting rusty in the garage as a melt system. It works well and it's cheap. A 25 quart dutch oven holds about 105# of lead. It doesn't take as much fuel as you think! Cast it into 1# ingots and cast away!! With a hobby like this, you either pay time or you pay money, or both. Americans once knew how to make everything. I don't think that was such a bad thing. Be sure you check J Morris metal out. That guy knows how to make stuff!! I am in no way affiliated with Leadheads, except Tommy bought a tractor from my Uncle Vernon. And I like his bullets. Tommy's OK too!

Welcome!!! This sport is like a crack habit!! Oh Boy are you going to spend money on it! Happily a better class of people to hang with, generally. SINGLE STACK is the ONE TRUE PATH. Hail John M. Browning. If God shoots a handgun, it's a 1911A1.

Oh My! Laughing VERY hard now. Difficult to breath, can't see, tears streaming down cheeks!!!! Capacitance! I'm SO sorry that happened to you. Can't type well! Laughing!!! Feel compassion, Hog feeding story leaps to my mind, memory of familiar sensations! So glad you woke up!!! Number 4?? Laughing, laughing. "A man who attempts to carry a cat by it's tail, will learn something which can be learned in no other way!!" -Mark Twain-

Perhaps it could partly be because of the difference in conditions. The runner mentioned is waiting to engage in the activity, to begin. The shooter IS engaged. Actively entrained in the moment. Perhaps the processing lag is shorter in that case. The visual cortex is huge, in proportion to the rest of the brain. It ties into everything. "It is possible that linear time is an illusion, all events may be taking place at the moment of the big bang!" -Stephen Hawking-

I love hangin' on this forum. The great crisis of our time is, form vs substance. There are, everywhere you look, attractive illusions, presented, packaged and made irresistible. Mostly they are hollow, without substance. There is SO much substance here, so often, it just gets me high! These threads often address the wordless experience of being in the only way we have to attempt to address it, with words! ALL truly transformative process in the human experience is accompanied by fire. Pick substantive experience and that fire burns away impurities. Pick hollow form and impurities accumulate. In the end we are all the sum of our choices. In the end, the principle of attraction will surround us with those we are like. This is one way karma works things out! An open thank you here for the time spent and thought expended by members of this forum. Namaste'

PB, I only know of you from reading your posts on this forum. Still, blessings on you and your father. I had years of troubles with my insides and a future that looked like dying after having Dr's snip away at me a little at a time. When your father is through all of it, PLEASE get him a good quality probiotic to restore the beneficial microbes that are supposed to be in there. He will no doubt be put on a regimen of antibiotics which will leave him open in the long run to be invaded by pathogenic bacteria and fungi. If this is old trouble, it could partly be tied to this anyway. It takes at least a year of taking a high quality probiotic to re-establish a properly balanced colony in the intestines once it has been messed up badly enough. Physicians will tell you it is not important, that gut flora comes back by itself. THAT IS NOT TRUE. I learned things about this that saved my life. I have pointers to information on the web so you can educate yourself on the topic. My dad died not long ago, ultimately as a result from being consumed from inside by bacterial and fungal pathogens he acquired from antibiotic overuse. We didn't get along too well, he and I. Still he was my father and I wish I could have gotten him to hear me on this topic. Brian's book is good stuff to go over, but this might be helpful in ways you can't imagine. Good luck and a long and happy life to your dad! "ALWAYS get a second opinion!" Frank Zappa

Parasitism drives evolution. I suppose you can look at it in terms of the way the universe is structured in an odd way. Also as a commentary on character. I expect a tapeworm gets pretty upset when you try to get rid of it. After all it's just trying to make a living! It has NO IDEA what it is! I see lots of people making choices about what they support and thus what they become, unconsciously. Being a parasite is a legitimate way to be in the world. It IS a "niche" in an ecological sense. Personally, one of the reasons I like hanging around with shooters is, as a group there are few, if any of that sort. Don't hate them, it's not worth the expenditure of energy. Don't suffer them either. If you free your heart of hatred, you can become an agent of karma. Think of seeing a purse snatcher running away and all you have to do is stick your foot out. Things just seem to take care of themselves after that! I suppose you can give Google the benefit of the doubt. Their company principles include the admonishment, "Don't be evil". Tell the security department at Google about it. Think of it as helping your immune system develop an antigen to a parasitic microbe. There are some "wicked smart" kids out there that recognize the value of ethical behavior, I'm lucky to know some. Turn em' loose on the guy and find another way to invite people to come play!! Sorry that happened to you. "Reality is SO much weirder than ANYTHING you can make up!!"

Brian, I am sorry to be a pest, but it seems to be in my nature. I would very much like to receive the Maku Mozo! Broadcast's when you send them out and I have tried to use the "add me to the list e-mail." I may be suffering from " Improper mouth position syndrome", as so far I'm not getting them! Could I trouble you to check to see if I am on the list? I may have to find a way to beat the spam filter my ISP provides into submission and I don't wish to be rude to it without cause! K

Colorado shooter to watch out for. Super Senior Paul Clark. Great guy. Shoots like his hair is on fire. Fast old man! Grip of Steel!! GOOD LUCK PAUL!!