Only Mad dogs and , er, Englishmen...

Union Jack

...go out in the noonday sun after two Sung Masses. Except, of course, that the "mad dogs" didn't; they were sensibly keeping their heads down while I went out to hunt them in 104* heat. You see, there's this cruel new trend here of people dropping off their unwanted attack dogs in the countryside. They go feral, pack up and attack livestock and, if they get the chance, humans. My Treasurer saw some yesterday and invited me out to "git 'em" after church. Damn good chap, the Treasurer. Evidently the dogs are black, betwixt the size of a coyote and a wolf, and six in number. Their tails are short, interestingly.

I was there, gun in hand, stealthy.

They were doubtless sleeping. I kept going, to the Valley of the Dry Bones...

Still no dogs, so I went untactical, had a smoke and shot a rabbit. They've become a menace.

Spent the rest of the afternoon shooting empty shotgun cartridges off of haybales with the venerable JC Higgins .22. Childish, but fun. Altogether a good way to unwind after the the Sunday morning biznai.

Back in the A/C now, contemplating next move against wild dog pack. Perhaps scoped AR in .308 would be sensible?

God bless,

LSP

PS. Stay tuned for linguistic philosopher GWB's Hog poem.

Ranging About

Kragg - not dissimilar to the Lee in feel & action.

Extremely enjoyable day at the range thanks to Tom, of Boomers & BS, who kindly let me sample a portion of his significant arsenal. I enjoyed it all - Garand v. Lee Enfield shoot off, .458 Lott, .557 Snider, Encore, Contender and more besides.

Somewhat indifferent marksmanship on my part at 100 yrds, shooting low with the Lee (oddly) and to the right with a scoped Mauser 7mm - which Tom shot with deadly accuracy. Still, we were in it for the fun and, for me, a chance to try out new weaponry.

Enormous Huge Great Rifle!

Shot better with the pistols, in particular Tom's custom 1911 Dan Wesson; I'm a complete convert, not that I was unwilling... Seriously - what an excellent pistol. Go out and buy one if you can. Today.

Just a lot of pistols.

Then, just as we'd finished firing the larger hand guns and were about to settle into shooting some relaxing Ruger & assorted .22 pistols, the rain came down in sheets and it was back to the range office to take shelter from the storm.

Despite the last portion of the shoot getting rained off, a great day was had by all:

Huge respect to the authour of Boomers & BS for sharing part of his exciting and powerful collection of fire arms.

The 1911 is "right on" - certainly as customised by Tom.

"Astro" range near Florence, Texas, is friendly and was happily empty - on Friday.

Garand seems easier to shoot than the Lee - but a very different rifle.

Winchester 70 Featherweight (30-06) looks beautiful, kicks like fury.

Evil Nazi sporterised rifle can be dead on target.

Ancient Rhodie Cavalry Carbine (?) might not hit much these days but is mighty fun to shoot.

You can shoot EXTREMELY LARGE ROUNDS through pistols single handed and hit the target.

And just in case you were wondering, the .410 through a rifled pistol barrel is no use whatsoever as a self defense round at 15 yards - perhaps much less (thx. Tom for the demo). At least that's the way I see it.

Looking forward to the next shoot.

Cheers,

LSP

Pig Sticker

Pig sticking, from The Graphic, 1891

“The loss of India would be final and fatal to us. It could not fail to be part of a process that would reduce us to the scale of a minor power”

WINSTON CHURCHILL

Smart man, Winston Churchill, and in that vein, I've been given some good advice on the hogs, namely: CHANGE METHOD. Forget rifles, bait, stalking, dogs, trucks etc. No, the ghosts of Cawnpore and The Mutiny suggest a different approach, horses and spears. Here's what Harper's, 1880, had to say about it:

"For pig-sticking there are two requisites in addition to the pig - a fast, steady horse, and a good hog spear."

Well said Harper's, simple and direct, quite unlike the useless Ro-Babble that pours out of Lambeth Palace. And with that in mind, good incentive to improve riding skills and learn spearmanship.

Off to the range tomorrow with a great deal of weaponry.

LSP

PS. Many thanks to Albert Rasch for pointing out the Horse/Spear/Hog/Raj connection; see his great blog for a neat post on breeding Razorbacks.

Pistols

Thinking that the time has come to start .22 pistol shooting because I can't afford to take the .45 out half as often as I'd like. To remedy the situation I borrowed a friend's Iver Johnson, which hadn't been cleaned in several lifetimes and stripped it down. Looking forward to shooting it on Friday, but think I'd better invest in a Ruger .22 LR. Not too expensive and good.

Planning to try out this .38 Special too, which will be interesting for me because I'm new to revolvers. I think it wouldn't take much to persuade me of their great importance and worth...

Can't have too many guns.

LSP

Hog Hunt Pt. 2

http://www.thejump.net/wild-hogs/1-wild-hog-picture-1/hog-9.htm

I wish I could say that the red pick up, the dog and the two hogs were mine, but they're not. They belong to a successful hunter who actually manages to shoot wild pigs, probably because he sees them, gets them in his sights, fires and kills them. That wasn't me on Tuesday, despite the best intentions.

Thanks to last week's reconnaisence in force we had a pretty good idea of where the pigs were active and moved off at a little past first light, adreniline up. The hogs had been spotted most mornings rooting about on some flat land next to a creek, which is where we went. I figured there was a good chance of success, because we were stealthy and prepared. There were no pigs on the flat.

Next we worked the brush and thickets where they'd broken cover on Friday. Nothing. Undaunted, one team of shooters scouted down a creek bed favored by the swine, while I went through the woods that overlooked it. I saw a young buck and a doe, very beautiful, and a skunk, but no hogs - for either group.

Spurious picture of my hogless pick up and some guns

Chances are we walked right by them, hunkered down and sleeping - or they've moved on to better things. But I doubt it, the signs are that they're still there; we'll probably have to bait them - beer corn is the plan.

As it turns out, a great walk in the country with rifles and sidearms, which is fine by me; would've been even better to have come face to face with the opposition. Still, you know what they say, "its not over till its over" and I don't think we've reached that point...

More on summer hog hunts as they come.

LSP

Greed

Thompson Center Warlord http://www.tcarms.com/store/icon-warlord-in-308-win.html

Picture from Sniper's Hide Forum:

http://www.snipershide.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=459350

I know this is shameless advertising for Thompson Center firearms - but, I'd like to own one of their "Warlord" tactical rifles, chambered in .308. The problem is, they cost around $3000, which I don't have... So I guess I'll have to add it to my L1A1, M14, Mforgery etc. wish list of useful and important things to get.

In the meanwhile, had a pleasant armed excursion into the country yesterday to fight off the perennial porcine menace. More of that later; off to GWB's to collect a Winchester Mod. 70 Featherweight for sighting in at a range on Friday. GWB's too lazy to do this, for some reason. He claims this is because of "relationship issues" and spends most of his time writing poetry about shooting hogs. I'll post some for your amusement & edification.

Excuse what SBW calls "Gun Pron".

Cheers,

LSP

European Death Wish

Arc de la Defense, Paris http://www.digitalbreizh.net

One of the interesting bylines of the dismally failing, alien driven, Ubuntuist secular humanist project, is European demographic suicide.

2.1 children per woman are needed to replace the existing population. In 2004 Germany's birthrate was 1.3, Italy's 1.2, Spain's 1.1, Italy's 1.2, France's 1.7 and so one, with 18 countries in the E.U. failing to reproduce at replacement rate. This will mean, amongst other things, that over 50% of the European populace will be will be at, or over, retirement age by mid-century, supported by a shrinking workforce. Pundits, such as Mark Steyn, predict the collapse of current social programs and the advent of "Eurabia".

Perhaps Steyn is right, but one thing's certain, we're witnessing a crisis of Western civilisational morale - the demographics listed above represent a greater population decline than at any time since the Black Death. Why has this come about?

George Weigel, in the fortunately easy to read "The Cube and the Cathedral" (see picture of neo-brutalist 'Cube' above), believes World War One acted as a sort of catalyst for various destructive currents of thought - he lists Comte, Fuerbach, Nietzche, and others, while quoting Solzhenitsyn:

"That war (WWI)... took place when Europe, bursting with health and abundance, fell into a rage of self-mutilation that could not but sap its strength for a century or more, perhaps forever. The only possible explanation for this is a mental eclipse among the leaders of Europe due to their lost awareness of a Supreme Power over them... Only the loss of that higher intuition which comes from God could have allowed the West to accept calmly, after World War I, the protracted agony of Russia as she was being torn apart by a band of cannibals."

Powerful words and, I think, true. What's needed, according to Weigel and Benedictus XVI, is a recovery of the value posited by the authour of Gulag Archepeligo et al. I would agree, but what do I know? I'm just a country LSP.

Anyway, off to make a dent in the hog demographic tomorrow - setting up at first light with enough weaponry to take on what's left of the British Army.

More anon,

LSP

Jack Rabbit

Feeling a bit of a sad loser after failing to slay pigs, I figured some remedial shooting practice was in order, so I went down to my Treasurer's ranch for some target shooting and the off chance that I could get some crows that sometimes roost along the treelines.

A dirt road or so later I arrived and talked church for a bit before moving off with the instruction, "If you see any rabbits, kill 'em. Take as long as you like." They'd been devouring vegetables and generally being a pest; I moved off in pursuit.

Sure enough, there were plenty of Jack Rabbits and after a few missed long shots I took down seven with an old JC Higgins bolt action .22. A scope might have helped with the long distance runners, but I was content with the shots and felt somewhat redeemed after yesterday's hesitation & miss against the pigs.

LSP melting with cheap as you like Mossberg

Rabbits done, I shot at some flying things with a 12 guage and practiced on the Lee - nothing spectacular but reasonable groups. I was pleased to see the rounds coming in a little high, as they should, with the battle sight calibrated at 300 yards and the peep sight at a minimum of 150 - I was shooting at around 50-60 yards.

Heat was a challenge (98* in the shade) but all in all, a great day's shoot.

LSP

Hogs 1, LSP 0

ATV driven by Mrs. James

Rescheduled a shoot at the Fort Hood Ranges yesterday to have a go at some hogs on a parishioner's ranch. It all started off well with two small shooting parties clambering aboard ATV's and heading off in search of the porcine menace.

LSP with No.4 Mk.1 on ATV

The pigs had been spotted along a half dried creek bed, then moving into brush covered high ground, so we checked that out - cleverly getting seperated in the process. The swine sensibly didn't go anywhere near my vehicle but they were spotted by the other group, who got them in their sights and called us in. We arrived - too late - the pigs had gone unscathed because our friends didn't want to shoot until they knew exactly where we were. Smart, safety first, but annoying, because a little planning would've got us on target at pretty much the same time and the tuskers would have gone down. At least a few of them.

So, chastened by the uncoordinated failure of our stupidly piecemeal attack, we attempted to beat the hogs down from the high ground into and along the creek bed, where I was lying in wait with the handy WWII killing system. Great plan, but the opposition had other thoughts and went in a different direction, leaving us to scout down the creek - plenty of evidence to show that the pigs had been there, just not at that point in time.

The creek being a bust we regrouped into one vehicle and went up to the high ground, taking it slow around some big thickets of brush. Then we heard it, the sound of swine. All off the ATV, advance to contact and the pigs were bolting fast without a shot being fired - I ran round to the edge of the brush just in time to see seven or eight young hogs breaking cover and running like fury. The ATV pulled up, I clambered in, and off we went in hot pursuit, pigs streaming ahead at speed. I took a shot from the vehicle, missed, the pigs rounded a corner and were lost to view.

We beat about in the brush for a while to no result - they had won, we had lost.

Moral of the tale: Enormous fun burning about on ATVs with guns, great excitement closing in on the pigs and getting into the chase and, as always, good to fire off a Lee Enfield, even if you miss. But - dismal planning prevented what should have been several kills. Also, I hesitated when the pigs broke cover and didn't shoot in the few seconds open to me; too slow off the mark.

Next time I'll argue for baiting the swine, or going out to get them where they're bedding down. Of course there's always the dog, knife and pistol approach but that would be a different hunt.

A return match is definitely in the offing.

LSP

Broken Old Rubbish

You know how it is, sometimes you get in the mood to buy a gun, which is the way I felt Thursday afternoon after riding about and target shooting at the stable stock tank. So I walked down to the "Gold Nugget Gun and Pawn" to see what was on offer.

Not much. An SMLE which looked sound and tempting until I found out that the bolt fell apart. Then there was a Mauser and that looked alright too, but its magazine was missing. An SKS seemed in decent(ish) shape but it was Norinco, so if it wasn't broken it soon would be, then there was a series of synth stock Savages in various of brokenness and so on, gun after busted gun.

Don't get me wrong, I like GNG&P and always have a pleasant visit while browsing the weaponry - but today was a bust - except, perhaps, an old Winchester 70, which seemed OK but a little pricey for what it was.

Anyway, what I really want is a semi auto battle rifle in 7.62 - just to have fun blasting away and using against pigs if the opportunity presents itself. Tom from Boomers&BS (check his neat post on 'Dragonslayer' & Encore projects) recommends an M1A/M14 type rifle or one of the FN FAL variants - as I understand it they're about the same price and performance. But I've never shot the M1A/M14 whereas I've had plenty of time on the FN (years ago...); so I guess the latter has a kind of nostalgia value and I used to be familiar with it. I think that swings me in the direction of the one time rifle of the Free World - still, the other's attractive because its American and, to me, new. What to do? Get both! But I haven't recieved a government bailout! I guess its FN first - then save up for an M1A, or something like that. saying that, all advice welcome.

Speaking of kit - great thanks to Suburban Bushwacker for "magisterial" knife post, which lured me towards the useful looking F1/S1 and the great looking custom jobs made by the Backyard Bushman.

Hope to make a dent in the porcine menace today - they've gotten away with far too much.

LSP

Episcopalien

Image of Boy Bishop from NY Times Magazine

Back in Texas after journalistic foray to California and TEC's triennial General Convention. So what was it all about? Something called "gender identity expression" apparently, which means:

Lifting a self-imposed ban on consecrating "LGBT" persons as bishops

"Developing" same sex blessing rituals

Suing any Episcopalians who disagree and want to get out

Telling the rest of the Anglican world to get with the program or get lost

At least that's the way the world's media saw it, which prompted Jefferts Schori, pictured above, to accuse the press of "so much misinformation". Perhaps she didn't like headlines such as "House of Deputies Goes Gay", or "Retired Bishop Denies Sacrament of Marriage". Maybe she didn't appreciate attention being drawn to the fact that TEC's new budget earmarks $4 million for lawyers to sue parishes and dioceses that are busy leaving her pansexual union - at a rate of around a thousand people a week.

Anyway, as a simple country priest who likes horses and guns I don't think you have to be a genius like St. Thomas Aquinas to work out the fact that some changes in doctrine are valid developments and some aren't. The criterion, I suppose, is consistency and what TEC's been up to in Anaheim is the opposite of around 2000 years worth of teaching and scriptural warrant on Faith and Morals.

Except for a minority of Provinces on TEC's declining payroll, the vast majority of the Anglican Communion knows this and looks set to break off an already tenuous relationship with Jefferts Schori's denomination. My feeling is that she knows this and simply doesn't care.

Why? I'll stick with earlier thoughts about aliens - some say they have a large base on the dark side of the moon, I'd recommend looking a little closer to home, at 815 2nd Ave. NYC and The Episcopal Church Center.

Cheers,

LSP

PS. Here's a link to the famous fighting monkey, Jacco Macacco.

GC2009: Aliens?

Its now Legislative Day Three, Session Two of TEC's (The Episcopal Church) 76th General Convention. As all the world knows, the theme of this conference is all about Ubuntu, an African concept denoting unity and ancestor worship. Why, then, is the Convention so keen to adopt one or all of thirty LGBT resolutions which will, in the words of Bishop Love of Albany, "rip the Communion to shreds". It doesn't make any sense until you realise that many of the Deputies and Bishops are not of this world.

How can you tell? I think this (from the excellent Above Top Secret site) helps:

"Many of you people are not actually humans. You may have human bodies and human blood, but you are not humans. You are extra terrestrial beings.

How do you know that you are an extra terrestrial being? Here are 6 easy steps to find out:

1) You always had a feeling that you don't belong here on this planet.

2) You've always felt being very different from humans.

3) You have a strong longing to "go home", although you don't know where home is (but its' not on this planet).

4) You often tend to watch humans and think "Why are they making things so complicated? It's really not that complicated."

5) You have a strong sense of purpose - that you are on this planet for a reason.

6) You may posses supernatural abilities: telepathy, clairvoyance, clairsentience, super empathy, etc.

Thank you ATS for helping out - I was confused but now its clear(er). Most Convention goers aren't from this planet, of course they don't think as humans do.

Just a thought between "stories".

Ubuntu!

LSP