I just ordered two Choate stocks

I just ordered two Choate stocks from European Target Shooters Supplies. It's my first dealing with them, but so far I think they'll be great to work with.

This is Ultimate Sniper stock I plan to use on my for my .338 Gaillard project;


This is what the new Varmint stock looks like. I think it will be great on my .223 project.

I am also considering getting a nice fat barrel for the .223 and chambering in .223 improved. Comments??

I said I wouldn't hunt this year, but...

I told enough people that I probably wouldn't hunt this year. I am still pissed off about my supposed buddy keeping the two deer I harvested last year. I haven't really shot much all year either. I think I fired about 15 rounds of 7.62x39mm. I hope I'm not too rusty. I usually fired hundreds of rounds yearly.
Well I changed my mind. I picked up two doe tags for the Herd Reduction Area. These were so cheap. Both tags cost me a total of $10.90 (That's 11.32 USD, ha ha ha). So I hope to get some time off and bag a couple fat does. Who knows, maybe I'll go back for a big buck after I turn in the heads so the folks at Sask. Environment can test them for Chronic Wasting Disease.

So now I have to make some emergency repairs to the stock on my Norinco m-305 (M14S, M1A clone) . Last year I overtightened my Harris bipod and pulled the sling stud right through the stock. Now I am building it up and reinforcing it. Next year I will finish my customized fiberglass stock.

Good Bye to my .338 Win Mag

Ted Gaillard inspected my rifle and found that the bore was actually pretty good. I thought it might be, as the rifle looked like it had little use when I bought it used. He even showed me the bore in detail with his bore scope. Of course I found the bore scope to be very cool. I was amazed at how closely I could see every little detail in my bore. Turns out I had some copper tracing present. I found that a bit odd, as I had just cleaned the bore with a spray in foaming bore cleaner. Ted didn't seem too concerned with the tiny amount of copper he found, so I am not too worried.

So I asked Ted to take his time re-crowning the muzzle and chambering the barrel in his .338 Galliard cartridge. He was even kind enough to set me up with what I thought was far to good a deal on the .338 Gaillard two die reloading set from Redding.

So I have until next year to start gathering up piles of 8mm Remington Magnum brass, magnum rifle primers and powder. I  just hope the factory Remington stock isn't too light for this cartridge. I don't want to develop a flinch from the recoil.

Torn Between Two Worlds

I am standing firmly with one foot in the Geek world and the other in the Gun world. What a weird mix? On one side I am a computer nerd. You know the type. I love Linux. I want to teach my self the Ruby programming language. I am a network administrator wannabe. On the other side of the coin, I love guns. I love how they work. I enjoy the science behind their function. I love learning about external ballistics and ballistic coefficients. I enjoy spending hours hand loading my own ammunition to perfection.

Is this normal?

As a result of my strange interests (only strange in that they are very unrelated), I find that many people are shocked to find I am interested in one of either guns or Linux. Here's what I mean:  People I bump into at gun shops or at the range, find it odd that the big redneck facing them enjoys configuring an Apache server. Then there are the times I surprise other geeks when they find out that I actually enjoy collecting military surplus firearms.

If only I could combine Linux with guns. Any ideas?

No luck with the Super Sniper scope

As you can tell by my recent posts, I am in gun mode.

recently I was hoping to acquire teh Super Sniper scope from SWFA. Despite it's silly name, my research indicated it was a great scope. Good enough in fact to win the US Navy contract, and also find itself used amongst other US forces areas. It was a good price too, compared to the expensive Leupold, Leicas, and Nightforce offerings.

Sadly though, SWFA will not ship to other countries. I can see why their policy makes sense, but I have to admit it is disappointing.

It's time to start saving money

I am going to have to start saving any cash I can. I decided to build my first custom rifle, and it won't be cheap. Unlike a some folks, I will not be spending $3000 - $5000 on the rifle, but I can see at least $1000 disappearing pretty quickly. Using budget components is still a little expensive for someone like me. A inexpensive tactical stock is $190. A barrel is probably $300. A decent (cheap) scope is at least $300. Chambering is going to be at least $200. Then I will have to accurize the system, and I really have no idea what that will set me back.

Looking over all this, it could almost convince me not to do this.

Rechambering one of my rifles

I'm about 95 % sure I will be re-chambering one of my rifles. My buddy Bill has been reporting great results with the 8.6 x 72mm Swamp Donkey Magnum I think I will follow suit, and chamber my left handed Remington 700 in the .338 Gaillard cartridge. It's basically the same cartridge, with some minor differences in shoulder angle. Essentially this is a 8mm Remington Magnum necked to .338 cal. It has a slight body taper, improved capacity, and a good shoulder. It is one hell of a great cartridge.

It has a fair bit of recoil, but I have shot my .338 Winchester Magnum enough, that I don't mind recoil. You just have to learn to ride with it.

I will visit the wildcat cartridge's creator Ted Gaillard soon and have my barrel inspected. This will tell me if the old barrel is worth re-chambering or not. In the future I will get a new barrel from Ted, and try to scrap up enough cash to get a decent stock and trigger job.

I can't wait.

I am actually reading a book

Sounds a little weird doesn't it? I am actually reading a book other than a technical manual. After what is probably ten years, I have finally decided to enhance my life by getting back into recreational reading. Admittedly, the books I selected are firearm related (historical). I figured that I should at least start reading again with something I might actually enjoy enough to finish.

Does Linux suck?

Every once in a while I try to recall just how far back it was when I began using Linux.

I remember using a version of Slackware that was available for purchase on some nice Infomagic CD sets. I also recall Redhat's Mother's Day release (very slick compared to Slackware back then). I can also remember months before these handy CD distributions were available, downloading individual floppy images from the Internet over my pathetic modem, just to get Slackware to install.

So when was it? I'm guessing that this was around 1995. Twelve years seems like a long time doesn't it? Wait, it's even longer. Version 1.0 (Mother's Day), was back in November 3, 1994 (1.2.8 kernel). I definitely recall downloading those floppy images I mentioned even before that release. Thirteen years! Now I feel old. Eve though I recall testing a version of Linux with kernel version 0.99 with my buddy Rick., I wasn't using it as early as some folks. They were using Linux as far back as 25 August 1991, when Torvalds first made his famous post to comp.os.minix.

Linux wasn't exactly smooth back then. Version 1.0 of March 1994 supported only single-processor i386 machines. When Linux 1.2.0 was released it only had 310,950 lines of code. Even after installing it, I wasn't sure what Linux was capable of doing for me, but I kept exploring. Using X Windows was not exactly easy back then. It was not like it is today. In the good old days, FVWM was perhaps the most popular desktop/window manager around. I had to edit all the conf files by hand for that little beauty, but I loved doing it. If I wanted to go on the Interenet with Linux, I had to jump through several hoops. Now people complain about wireless support in Linux. Ha! We had to hand configure scripts just to dial up with either PPP or SLIP. Once we got on the net, we had nothing like Mozilla, Firefox, or Opera. We used Mosaic or Amaya.

Linux was definitely an interesting and fun challenge back then. Computer system resources were low, especially for poor people like me. I was thrilled to have a entire MB of memory, but I knew that Linux ran better with more available memory. So what's does a Linux lover do to free up memory? He compiles his kernel to strip it of absolutely all unneeded stuff. I would configure the settings and start my kernel compilation before bed. My little 486 SLC would take all night to give me my fresh, thin kernel. Getting up in the morning to find that I made the slightest error meant I could watch the compile process on my screen for another 5 to 7 hours. Half a decade later I recall using a dual Pentium Pro board and having a contest with a buddy to see who could compile a kernel the fastest. Twenty minutes to get a new kernel built, whoo hoo, I was a kernel compiling god.

Learning how Linux worked back then was great. Everybody was using Windows, and this new operating system was so alien. It was exciting to find that after researching something really complicated and finally figuring it out, that I had just seen the tip of the iceberg. Linux and all of it's tools, apps, configurations, and languages, was so vast, it felt like taking first steps into the new world. I was an explorer.

I used to sit happily and not complain too much about re-compiling my X server to trim it of all the unwanted junk, or building my own scripts to launch windows. There was no handy GDM or KDM back then, I had to know the startx command intimately. Even with all the manual configuration, and lack of important apps and tools, I never complained too much. I was in love.

Now I wonder if Linux is starting to suck. After all these years and all the different distributions of Linux, I find that Linux is doing things to piss me off. Years ago, I found Linux to be very solid and reliable despite its youth. Perhaps I was looking at Linux through rose colored glasses. Now I find it locks up, or does silly shit just to make me grit my teeth. How many distributions do I have to fiddle with before I find a decent Debian based distro that doesn't screw up when it encounters my Intel based sata controller? Ubuntu handles the controller. Why not Sidux, or Mint Linux, and some others? Why do my recent installations (tested with different distributions) sometimes cause my KDM display to be massively huge with what appears to be a ridiculously large virtual, scrolling display? Sure I can restart the X server, and it magically cures itself, but why should I have to? Lately I notice that in Ubuntu, I have to hit enter after everything loads at boot up, or the screen just sits there as if

it is taking hours to complete rc.local. Having to hit enter just to get a login sucks. Those types of annoyances never happened years ago. As problems, I'm sure that to some people, these little gripes of mine are all too trivial to complain about. Are there other more pressing issues in Linux that I am simply not aware of? I also wonder if I am using my selective memory and not considering some real annoyances in Linux that bothered me years ago. Maybe Linux doesn't suck any more or less then it ever did.

It still beats Windows.

Goodbye Readyboost

I gave Readyboost a shot. I thought it was going to make Vista perform better. The multiple web pages describing its benefits had me convinced that Readyboost was worth trying.

I don't get it. I think I may have expected too much. I thought I would see some sort of difference. As far as I can tell, Readyboost is useless. Remember those cola tests where someone was blindfolded and tried to compare one cola from another? I bet that if i sat in front of two identical laptops with same software and everything, but one used Readyboost, I couldn't tell the difference.

So now what do I do with a 2 GB Sandisk SD card?  I found that our new, and inexpensive Electrohome DVD player, shows AVI and picture content from SD cards. So I didn't waste $30 after all.