Doble Troble

That would be a real gut-buster if the consequences were easier to take.

Time to load-up some blanks in the black powder pistolas! I think I need to make a black powder cannon specifically for the 4 th of July. I wonder if its possible to shoot fireworks out of this type of cannon (of course it is)! I need to look into how to make fireworks too. Hopefully I'll be better prepared next year. You guys have fun without unintentionally blowing something up.

I'm glad she and her son are excercising their rights to keep and bear arms. I think those of us who don't support her position on keeping and bearing hand guns need to be careful about making an issue of this. We don't want to reduce ourselves to the antis hypocrital level. The high road is always the best one to travel.

I think the M48 and 24/47 Yugos that are plentiful right now are the best cost/benefit option right now. I especially like the 24/47s - probably because they come with nice, modifiable walnut stocks. All of the X x 57/55 cartridges fit and feed reliably, and I don't see any real benefit of longer cases. I can't think of anything that can't be done well on the X x 57 platform: Long range 6.5 x 55 loaded-up; deer 6.5 x 55 or 7 x 57; elk 8 x 57; varmints 6 mm Rem or 257 Roberts. Don't forget the 7.65 x 53 which is everything the 308 Win is and more. It was all covered before the turn (of the last) century. I do like the 30-06 and 280 Rem though. All the magnumitis is unnecessary (and I suspect has something to do with trying to compensate for other deficiencies). Having just put a couple hundred rounds of 200 - 300 gr 45 cal bullets down range out of a Colt 45 makes me think that a similar situation exists for handguns. I finally know what a hand cannon is. All I needed was a hot dog and a hounds tooth jacket and I could have been Harry Callahan. Sorry for the egregious digression. Buy a 24/47 for your project, you'll have a search on your hands finding anything better. And consider the 7.65 x 53 instead of the 308. Take it one step at a time. Ask questions here and you'll get good (but potentially conflicting - but we have to have our fun too) advice about how to proceed.

The media decided you don't need to know more about that - you're an American - you're part of the problem. What you do need to know about is the fact that we were secretly tracking exchange of funds through Belgum. That will help you and the terrorists better understand the situation. The terrorists already know everything about the murder of the two American servicemen.

It looks really good! The advice for notching that I've followed is out of Roy Dunlap's Gunsmithing. His advice is to notch just far enough that the flag safety is easy to fully engage. Have you tried this test? The first one I did was before I completely understood what Mr. Dunlap was trying to communicate. I overdid that one. Its one of my first trophys, but I imagine that I could weld it up and try again. I tend to learn the hard way.

Jason, Thanks for the info. I wasn't a good scientist and I didn't shoot it before I reamed it (the thought of my nice 0.452 bullets going through those 0.449 throats was like fingernails on a chalkboard), so I won't have any before and after data. I've got about 150 various cartridges that I loaded-up for the Marlin that I plan to shoot through it tomorrow (if the range isn't still flooded - we're not having any rain problems here on the E. Coast right now). They're pretty hot - I've got some of the 300 gr gas checked bullets from the Lee mold over 22 gr of H-110. According to Linebaugh they should be under max, but I bet the fireball that you mentioned will be forthcoming. I'd be very interested in your Dad's accuracy loads if he doesn't mind sharing them (if he does I understand). After I run what I have loaded through it I should have some idea of where to start working up. If it shoots I might try hunting with it - you don't have to be imprisioned in a tree stand to handgun hunt out here. I've got a lot of deer to shoot this season with all the guns I've acquired/put together over the winter and spring. Hopefully I'll have more time this year. We still have a bit of venison in the freezer, but I think that we'll probably cook it up for a 4th of July treat.

The USS Liberty by Mitchell Bard The Israeli attack on the USS Liberty was a grievous error, largely attributable to the fact that it occurred in the midst of the confusion of a full-scale war in 1967. Ten official United States investigations and three official Israeli inquiries have all conclusively established the attack was a tragic mistake. On June 8, 1967, the fourth day of the Six-Day War, the Israeli high command received reports that Israeli troops in El Arish were being fired upon from the sea, presumably by an Egyptian vessel, as they had a day before. The United States had announced that it had no naval forces within hundreds of miles of the battle front on the floor of the United Nations a few days earlier; however, the USS Liberty, an American intelligence ship assigned to monitor the fighting, arrived in the area, 14 miles off the Sinai coast, as a result of a series of United States communication failures, whereby messages directing the ship not to approach within 100 miles were not received by the Liberty. The Israelis mistakenly thought this was the ship doing the shelling and war planes and torpedo boats attacked, killing 34 members of the Liberty's crew and wounding 171. Numerous mistakes were made by both the United States and Israel. For example, the Liberty was first reported — incorrectly, as it turned out — to be cruising at 30 knots (it was later recalculated to be 28 knots). Under Israeli (and U.S.) naval doctrine at the time, a ship proceeding at that speed was presumed to be a warship. The sea was calm and the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry found that the Liberty's flag was very likely drooped and not discernible; moreover, members of the crew, including the Captain, Commander William McGonagle, testified that the flag was knocked down after the first or second assault. According to Israeli Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin's memoirs, there were standing orders to attack any unidentified vessel near the shore.1 The day fighting began, Israel had asked that American ships be removed from its coast or that it be notified of the precise location of U.S. vessels.2 The Sixth Fleet was moved because President Johnson feared being drawn into a confrontation with the Soviet Union. He also ordered that no aircraft be sent near Sinai. A CIA report on the incident issued June 13, 1967, also found that an overzealous pilot could mistake the Liberty for an Egyptian ship, the El Quseir. After the air raid, Israeli torpedo boats identified the Liberty as an Egyptian naval vessel. When the Liberty began shooting at the Israelis, they responded with the torpedo attack, which killed 28 of the sailors. The Joint Chiefs of Staff investigated the communications failure and noted that the Chief of Naval Operations expressed concern about the prudence of sending the Liberty so close to the area of hostilities and four messages were subsequently sent instructing the ship to move farther away from the area of hostilities. The JCS report said the messages were never received because of “a combination of (1) human error, (2) high volume of communications traffic, and (3) lack of appreciation of sense of urgency regarding the movement of the Liberty.” The report also included a copy of a flash cable sent immediately after the attack, which reported that Israel had “erroneously” attacked the Liberty, that IDF helicopters were in rescue operations, and that Israel had sent “abject apologies” and requested information on any other U.S. ships near the war zone. Initially, the Israelis were terrified that they had attacked a Soviet ship and might have provoked the Soviets to join the fighting.3 Once the Israelis were sure what had happened, they reported the incident to the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and offered to provide a helicopter for the Americans to fly out to the ship and any help they required to evacuate the injured and salvage the ship. The offer was accepted and a U.S. naval attaché was flown to the Liberty. The Israelis were “obviously shocked” by the error they made in attacking the ship, according to the U.S. Ambassador in Tel Aviv. In fact, according to a secret report on the 1967 war, the immediate concern was that the Arabs might see the proximity of the Liberty to the conflict as evidence of U.S.-Israel collusion.3a Many of the survivors of the Liberty remain bitter, and are convinced the attack was deliberate as they make clear on their web site. In 1991, columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak trumpeted their discovery of an American who said he had been in the Israeli war room when the decision was made to knowingly attack the American ship.4 In fact, that individual, Seth Mintz, wrote a letter to the Washington Post on November 9, 1991, in which he said he was misquoted by Evans and Novak and that the attack, was, in fact, a "case of mistaken identity." Moreover, the man who Mintz originally said had been with him, a Gen. Benni Matti, does not exist. Also, contrary to claims that an Israeli pilot identified the ship as American on a radio tape, no one has ever produced this tape. In fact, the official Israeli Air Force tape clearly established that no such identification of the ship was made by the Israeli pilots prior to the attack. Tapes of the radio transmissions made prior, during and after the attack do not contain any statement suggesting the pilots saw a U.S. flag before the attack. During the attack, a pilot specifically says, “there is no flag on her!” The recordings also indicate that once the pilots became concerned about the identity of the ship, by virtue of reading its hull number, they terminated the attack and they were given an order to leave the area. A transcript of the radio transmissions indicates the entire incident, beginning with the spotting of a mysterious vessel off El Arish and ending with the chief air controller at general headquarters in Tel Aviv telling another controller the ship was “apparently American” took 24 minutes.5 Critics claimed the Israeli tape was doctored, but the National Security Agency of the United States released formerly top secret transcripts in July 2003 that confirmed the Israeli version. A U.S. spy plane was sent to the area as soon as the NSA learned of the attack on the Liberty and recorded the conversations of two Israeli Air Force helicopter pilots, which took place between 2:30 and 3:37 p.m. on June 8. The orders radioed to the pilots by their supervisor at the Hatzor base instructing them to search for Egyptian survivors from the "Egyptian warship" that had just been bombed were also recorded by the NSA. "Pay attention. The ship is now identified as Egyptian," the pilots were informed. Nine minutes later, Hatzor told the pilots the ship was believed to be an Egyptian cargo ship. At 3:07, the pilots were first told the ship might not be Egyptian and were instructed to search for survivors and inform the base immediately the nationality of the first person they rescued. It was not until 3:12 that one of the pilots reported that he saw an American flag flying over the ship at which point he was instructed to verify if it was indeed a U.S. vessel.6 In October 2003, the first Israeli pilot to reach the ship broke his 36-year silence on the attack. Brig.-Gen. Yiftah Spector, a triple ace, who shot down 15 enemy aircraft and took part in the 1981 raid on the Iraqi nuclear reactor, said he had been told an Egyptian ship was off the Gaza coast. "This ship positively did not have any symbol or flag that I could see. What I was concerned with was that it was not one of ours. I looked for the symbol of our navy, which was a large white cross on its deck. This was not there, so it wasn't one of ours." The Jerusalem Post obtained a recording of Spector's radio transmission in which he said, "I can't identify it, but in any case it's a military ship."7 Spector's plane was not armed with bombs or, he said, he would have sunk the Liberty. Instead he fired 30mm armor piercing rounds that led the American survivors to believe they had been under rocket attack. His first pass ignited a fire, which caused the ship to billow black smoke that Spector thought was a ruse to conceal the ship. Spector acknowledged in the Post interview that he made a mistake, and said he admitted it when called to testify in an inquiry by a U.S. senator. "I'm sorry for the mistake," he said. "Years later my mates dropped flowers on the site where the ship was attacked." None of Israel's accusers can explain why Israel would deliberately attack an American ship at a time when the United States was Israel's only friend and supporter in the world. Confusion in a long line of communications, which occurred in a tense atmosphere on both the American and Israeli sides (five messages from the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the ship to remain at least 25 miles — the last four said 100 miles — off the Egyptian coast arrived after the attack was over) is a more probable explanation. Accidents caused by “friendly fire” are common in wartime. In 1988, the U.S. Navy mistakenly downed an Iranian passenger plane, killing 290 civilians. During the Gulf War, 35 of the 148 Americans who died in battle were killed by “friendly fire.” In April 1994, two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters with large U.S. flags painted on each side were shot down by U.S. Air Force F-15s on a clear day in the “no fly” zone of Iraq, killing 26 people. In April 2002, an American F-16 dropped a bomb that killed four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. In fact, the day before the Liberty was attacked, Israeli pilots accidentally bombed one of their own armored columns.8 Retired Admiral, Shlomo Erell, who was Chief of the Navy in Israel in June 1967, told the Associated Press (June 5, 1977): “No one would ever have dreamt that an American ship would be there. Even the United States didn't know where its ship was. We were advised by the proper authorities that there was no American ship within 100 miles.” Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara told Congress on July 26, 1967: “It was the conclusion of the investigatory body, headed by an admiral of the Navy in whom we have great confidence, that the attack was not intentional.” In 1987, McNamara repeated his belief that the attack was a mistake, telling a caller on the “Larry King Show” that he had seen nothing in the 20 years since to change his mind that there had been no “cover­up.”9 In January 2004, the State Department held a conference on the Liberty incident and also released new documents, including CIA memos dated June 13 and June 21, 1967, that say that Israel did not know it was striking an American vessel. The historian for the National Security Agency, David Hatch, said the available evidence "strongly suggested" Israel did not know it was attacking a U.S. ship. Two former U.S. officials, Ernest Castle, the United States Naval Attache at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv in June 1967, who received the first report of the attack from Israel, and John Hadden, then CIA Chief of Station in Tel Aviv, also agreed with the assessment that the attack on the Liberty was a mistake.10 The new documents do not shed any light on the mystery of what the ship was doing in the area or why Israel was not informed about its presence. The evidence suggests the ship was not spying on Israel. Israel apologized for the tragedy immediately and offered on June 9 to compensate the victims. Israel ultimately paid nearly $13 million in humanitarian reparations to the United States and to the families of the victims in amounts established by the U.S. State Department. The matter was officially closed between the two governments by an exchange of diplomatic notes on December 17, 1987.

Have you ever asked him why, specifically, he hates Bush? Ask for specific reasons. A bulleted list. You probably won't get one. Feelings and bulleted lists don't mix. But bulleted lists are required to lead any successful organization.

Well guys a gunshow came through our little burg last weekend and I'd been wanting a Blackhawk in Colt 45 (for no better reason than I have a rifle in Colt 45 and it isn't accurate enough and I have all the reloading stuff and am not using it...so I need a new gun). It turned-out that exactly what I was looking for was there waiting for me and at a reasonable price ($340). So I bought it. The first thing I did when I got it home was slug the barrel and the cylinder. My plan is to shoot cast bullets out of it (the hundreds that I made while thinking that my Marlin 1894 was going to make it as a buffalo rifle which led to another project that is an entirely different story. Anyway it turned out that the chamber throats spec'ed out at 0.449' and the bore grooves at 0.452" Not a good combo, especially with cast bullets, and I've learned that this is a common problem with Ruger Colt 45s. It's so common that Brownell's sells a throating reamer specifically for the problem (but they want $75 for the reamer and $40 more for the pilots. I didn't spend good money on a mini- lathe and mill to be paying for throating reamers, and so I made my own. I used the approach I've developed for making chambering reamers. But this throating reamer was much easier. Since working-up the chamber reamer method I've learned more about relieving the lands. This post on the AR board was particularly educational. I've recently acquired a belt sander which is rapidly becoming my second favorite power tool (after my cheap Harbor Freight bandsaw). I carefully relieved the lands using the belt sander and a 120 grit belt until I could just still see each land. Then I stoned to sharpen. This is the best cutting reamer I've ever made. The reamed throats have come out at 0.454" The reamer was 0.453" which is what I was hoping the final dimension would be. I hope I didn't screw the pooch, but its got to be an improvement over what would have happened to those cast bullets with 0.449" throats.

It's hard to be politically correct when you're surrounded by people who want to kill you. Political correctness is the ultimate luxury enjoyed by our decadent Western society. Liberals consider it an entitlement, but they're wrong. I think we need to start realizing that the world has become much smaller over the last century and as it has, like the Israelis, we have in a way (once again) become surrounded by people who want to kill us. The war against terror is real, and if we don't take it to them, we'll be dealing with them where we live. I entirely support Isreal's aggressive approach - because they don't have any alternative. I admire the fact that they don't whine about it, they just do what they need to. I believe Isreal would prefer peace, but when you're dealing with people who 1) openly state they want to wipe your nation from the face of the Earth and 2) follow a religion that endorses dishonesty, there isn't much room for negotiation. This is a problem that won't go away until Palestinians (and Muslims) become reasonable and trustworthy. The last 1300 years suggests that this won't happen soon.

Stuff happens. I'm just glad that the consequences weren't more dramatic. Good for Remington standing up. I'm sure your Canuck diplomacy helped the matter too.

And now we have Kandahar Kerry. A Tokyo Rose by another name (and still smells like a skunk).

I was reading an article in the last issue of Precision Shooting magazine written by a gunsmith with a reputation for rebarreling accurate 22 LR target rifles. One of his secrets is in slugging barrels to determine where/if there's a constriction toward the muzzle. If there is a constriction, he cuts the crown there. If the muzzle is a bigger diameter than toward the breech, he says the barrel isn't likely to shoot. It sounds reasonable and has me thinking.

Both look like good practice fodder. You might get lucky and get an accurate rifle out of them. The cheap A&B I chambered in 38-55 is turning-out to be a shooter.

That's good. It would make a good bumpersticker. Can you do "Remchestlin" or "Maremchestuger" too? You don't want to leave anyone out. If you were to leave someone out, I'd think Winchester would be the one at this point.

Sunday my wife was feeding me those expensive grapes and my boys massaged my feet while I watched sports on TV. And then I woke up.

My personal very biased opinion is that the 6.5 x 55 (with those beautiful 140 gr AMax bullets that Hornady makes) will outperform the 308 at all potential ranges. The Swedes I've chambered in former 8 x 57 actions feed all five without second thought. Regarding the bore diameter, I'd trust Woody and would consider the $100 well spent.

I think Chaote does an M98 stock with a blind magazine. I don't think Richard's does. You'll have to make some more decisions. Do you want a rifle with a blind magazine, or a rifle to work on to improve sporterization skills.

Here's a link to a rebuttal of points made in Al's recent horror film

LIBERTARIAN Your PERSONAL issues Score is 80%. Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 90%. Not many conservatives have completed that quiz (there are almost as many statists [eeew[). Maybe the quiz is not designed to bring-out conservativism.

Here's an interesting article about Hmong relocation to Wisconsin during the '90s. The problem with ragheads is Allah-sanctioned lying. Allah doesn't consider lying to be bad behavior. Unfortunately lack of truthfulness makes civilization impossible.

I hate people who consistently behave badly. The racial problems that we have are due to consistently bad behavior that has become associated with particular groups of people. Some of these groups feel entitled to behave badly because of their racial background. This is a really bad idea and only good leadership from within these groups can resolve this behavior problem. We have also been encouraged by the Left to become more accepting of the "diverse" behavior associated with members of these groups. To the extent that these behaviors are not bad, we should tolerate them. We should not tolerate any form of bad behavior. The problem is in agreeing what bad behavior is. Good behavior isn't defined by what is legal (otherwise lawyers might be more useful).

Jason, I thought of you as I was dodging a doe in my '89 Mazda B2200. The boys and I we're taking the long way home this morning through the cornfields. We were lucky that Bambi paced us for a few yards before cutting in front. Damn deer can run fast.

I like dave h's approach. We're all just people. We can't know what other people are thinking, so we can't judge others based on their thoughts. The only thing we can justifiably judge others by is what they do, or don't do. Our behavior is very important.