Seventeen weeks, about a third of a year into this, and we’re still chuggin’ along. So far so good.

This post introduces something new: a comment of the week.

Comment of the Week

Jeff Rutter said, responding to this post about a cringe-inducing negligent discharge at gun safety class:

When I was an M.P. in Germany in the 70′s; we had a death occur due to horseplay with the (then)issued .45 pistol. Orders came down from on high to have mandatory classes on the proper way to do “Inspection Arms” with the .45.

The first class in our area, a Staff Sergeant with long years of service was giving the class. He managed to do it very wrong. He chambered a round,and promptly sent it through the ceiling into the office above where fortunately it didn’t hit anyone.

Sounds like the Army all right. You would think “inspection arms” would not be a perishable skill for MPs (don’t they do this as part of every shift change, or are we wrong about that?), but you never know. An experienced guy who overestimates his own knowledge is a lot  more dangerous than a newbie who knows he’s a newbie.

What We Blogged

As ever, the meat of this is the rundown on the week’s posts so you can go back and catch the ones you missed (will be linked soon).

  • A pet peeve… “ordnance” vs. “ordinance.” — was this post this week or last week? We’ll, it’s worth restating. If you don’t know which “ord” is right, just say “weaponry” or “regulation” as the context requires, and you’ll never mess this up, and we’ll never make fun of you before our growing global readership.
  • Sunday is for cheating and we did cheat a bit on last Saturday’s posts. (We’re doing something similar today with the Matinee post).
  • Historic Naval Guns to Guard Phoenix War Memorial — we never served in the Navy or in artillery, but by gum there are some serious guns there. And the war-memorial builders in Phoenix have gotten hold of two of them, that neatly bookend World War II — a main-battery tube from USS Arizona and one from USS Missouri — the Alpha and the Omega of the Pacific War and of US participation in Global Unpleasantness II.
  • Travis Mills update — he’s not an SF guy but as a paratrooper he’s still a brother. (Just a little brother). So we’re proud of him for surviving an attack that was supposed to kill him, and we’ve got a brotherly eye on his recovery.
  • Engagement Dynamics of a Police Gunfight — in which a cop gets very, very lucky but also does things right once the perp starts shooting. We’ve had some criticism from other cops on this and may have a follow up post next week.
  • Local Wannabe Pleads NG — a slimy guy who’s been inflating his record so long it got him tossed out of the actual Navy is on trial.
  • Lord Love a Duck… another gun safety “bad example” where a guy manages to shoot himself and his wife with just one single negligent discharge. Bonus points for doing it in gun safety class.
  • This is a geeky post that only AR-15/M-16 collectors will get excited about. The so-called “605″ upper receiver that was used on some Air Force M16s and one-off Colt prototypes is tracked down and we answer the 5Ws on it, throwing in “how many” for completeness’s sake. (Actually, we don’t know exactly how many, but we are able to set an upper bound for manufacture of this receiver).
  • Weapons Website of the Week: Corbin bullet swaging machinery lets you make jacketed bullets at home, and, if you take care, lets you make them better than factory bullets. Many custom makers, the bullet-makers to the target-shooting champions and extreme-range hunters, use this equipment.
  • Some days you eat the bear…some days the bear eats you… some days the Feds take a dim view of you eating the bear and you wind up in court, like happened to Ted Nugent.
  • ATF Mexican Trace Data Released — this post just gave you the link. We’ve had our hands on the data for a while, and we’ll tease you that the most interesting numbers are the ones that they didn’t release.
  • The Value of Your Law Degree from U Baltimore Just Plunged, if you’re dim enough to have attended University of Baltimore Law in the first place (it’s an expensive, low ranked school, so the grads don’t make enough to pay off their student loans). But they apparently think they’re reputation is so bad they needed to hire a guy who’s got a criminal lawyer on retainer over Fast & Furious, the ATF brainstorm that armed the Sinaloa Cartel with thousands of weapons and contributed to hundreds (and counting) of murders. Maybe they know he has a promise of a presidential pardon in his pocket.
  • We went Inside the Izmash AK Factory thanks to a well-timed Russian photo essay, and noted that as interesting as it is (much more manual than an American or German factory), it’s struggling as a business and declared bankruptcy on the 6th of April. That doesn’t mean liquidation, perhaps: Remington, Colt, Winchester and Smith and Wesson have all had the wolf at the door at one time or another, too.
  • Fill your hands… (Slightly NSFW) — we got a tremendous kick out of this Bushmaster AR-15 with its personalized slogan. We’ve seen some pretty entertaining takes on the old 16 (as we’ll always think of it), including Zombie Hunter biohazard decorations and a steampunk AR-15 that left us kind of cold (after all, there’s already steampunk guns out there — what’s a Mazim with a brass water jacket?)
  • Saturday Matinee  — didn’t get done on time and will be backdated. Sorry, some days you eat the bear, some days you spend some time in the mad science lab and then fall asleep in the recliner with a cat. Relax, though, we don’t own a single Nehru suit, Mr Bond.
  • That Was the Week that Was: 2012 Week 17 – This post, which brings us full circle.

What’s Coming Next Week

God willin’ and the creek don’t rise:

  • Legendary Weapons of SF 1972-1992… no, seriously!
  • Who really made the calls on the Abbotabad Raid?
  • Bank of America vs. McMillan — evidence that breaks the he-said/she-said deadlock. Guess who’s lying?
  • Some analysis on the ATF Weapons Statistics and the dreadful media.
  • A local (NH) gun story that was incredibly badly botched (or dishonestly reported).
  • (Maybe) meet a service-disabled veteran — who’s a dog. (This one may slide till the week after).
  • (Maybe) a couple of book reviews.

The Boring Statistics

17 posts, 9708 word, about a half-dozen substantive comments.

This entry was posted in Administrivia on by Hognose.

About Hognose

Former Special Forces 11B2S, later 18B, weapons man. (Also served in intelligence and operations jobs in SF).