Frank Zanzibar

+Frank Weston, 1871-1924

Exited the highway to get a cup of coffee before church; the sun was rising on a beautiful brisk morning and the air was full of the sound of shotguns firing off against doves - which made me want to go for a morning shoot - badly. But I headed off to the Missions instead and preached on John's Prologue and the Incarnation, concluding with the Bishop of Zanzibar, thus:

"You have got your Mass, you have got your Altar, you have begun to get your Tabernacle. Now go out into the highways and hedges where not even the Bishops will try to hinder you. Go out and look for Jesus in the ragged, in the naked, in the oppressed and sweated, in those who have lost hope, in those who are struggling to make good. Look for Jesus. And when you see him, gird yourselves with his towel and try to wash their feet."

Notice that there isn't anything conditional in Bishop Weston's comments on looking and seeing. Well, I'll have to live up to the message...

Shoot straight,

LSP

Boxing Day

Ice Age

Drove through a light dusting of Global Warming to get to the LSP command post in Dallas and a Christmas greeting from my old friend Moet; always a welcome guest. Then it was food, fun and family till well into the night - huge enjoyment. And what's wrong with that, in our puritanical and barbarous times? Nothing at all.

lull before the storm...

Speaking of barbarians, it seems that yet another person has tragically misunderstood The Religion of Peace and set himself alight while trying to blow up an airplane heading to Detroit. A good thing Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab failed. What an evil thing to do, thank God he was stopped.

Have a great Boxing Day and Feast of St. Stephen.

Cheers,

LSP

Merry Christmas

Jowett

Jowett, Master of Balliol, after a mile of walking in silence with the young Augustus Baker,

"Your last observation was singularly commonplace."

Well, I stand judged... Anyway... thanks for reading & following.

Merry Christmas!

LSP

Midnight Jokers

I've stayed out of the Healthcare thing because everyone else has been on it but I've got to say that the comments on Hillbuzz and KOOK's seem right on the money. Death Panels, infanticide, subterfuge, corruption, pork... and the list goes on. Anyway, here's some writing from Hillbuzz via the excellent KOOK's Manifesto, if you haven't read it already:

Claire McCaskill, the second worst Senator alive today, is stirring rebellion in Missouri.

Across the state, images of Claire Bear as The Joker are popping up…caused by Missourians angry at her refusal to stop the government rationing of healthcare through Harry Reid’s dead of night, top secret, forced legislation.

Every single Democrat voting for this monstrous bill is a Joker.

This is not how legislation should be passed. This is not the American way. This is how the Soviet Union and banana republics operated.

UPDATE: Some of you wonder why Claire McCaskill is now just the Second-Worst Living Senator. Previously, she has been listed as the Worst Living Senator in our book. Harry Reid, in our opinion, nudged her out of her title a few weeks back when he started calling opponents of Healthcare Rationing RAAACISTS, and said that opposing what he was doing with this secret, middle of the night legislation was tantamount to supporting slavery. That is so wrong, so inappropriate, and so patently INSANE that we couldn’t help but list him as the Worst of the Worst. McCaskill will, no doubt, regain her title in November 2010 when Reid is booted from office…and she will retain that title until she, too, is removed from the Senate in 2012.

Off to wrap presents now.

LSP

I Like Guns

Found this at Conservative Scallywag. Result.

Must get more of them...

Happy shooting,

LSP

Berdyaev

Wjatscheslaw Iwanow, Lev Kobilinskij-Ellis, N. Berdyaev (standing) and Andrej Belyi

I've been struck Berdyaev's book "End of Our Time"; he was writing in 1935. Here's a quote:

"Faith in the ultimate political and social salvation of mankind is quenched. We have reached settlement-day after a series of centuries during which movement was from the centre, the spiritual core of life, to the periphery, its surface and social exterior. And the more empty of real significance social life has become, the more it has tyrannized over the general life of man. Politics have twined about us like a strangling parasite, and the greater part of contemporary political and social life has no reality, no being, at all: it is just bogus. The strife of parties, parliaments, conferences, newspapers, programmes and platforms, propaganda and demonstrations, the grab and scheming for power - these are not life... they are a hopeless hindrance."

He doesn't have much time for the Bolshevists either. These, he feels, are in the grip of a diabolic, supernatural power, the "kingdom of Satan".

Perhaps they were - or are. Regardless, I like "strangling parasite". Seems to sum our situation up neatly, and his thoughts on secularism aren't bad either, but that's another post.

Have a blessed Sunday,

LSP

Moving House

There I was, in Dallas, quietly standing outside a restaurant, reflecting on the state of the world and a magazine deadline when all of a sudden a house went by - on a flatbed. There it was, moving down a side street in Oak Cliff. You don't get that in England. Amazing country, Texas.

Anyway, a pleasant couple captured the thing on their smart I Phones and emailed me the shot. They were from Holland, I think, and wanted to know who I was and where I was from. So I rambled on about guns and England - much consternation in the Dutch camp.

Cheers,

LSP

GNN & The Holy Sepulchre

Entrance to the Holy Sepulchre

I've been to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre a couple of times and its never failed to move me, on several levels. I was moved when I came across this post on the excellent GNN; here's the intro:

"OK... it's time to come clean. I didn't come to Israel for the waters, nor the nightlife. Some months ago I realized a calling to ordination in the Episcopal Church. Jerusalem is my pilgrimage. It has confirmed my faith and made me all the more confident in my decision.

Since my childhood I have heard many spiritual and downright breathless tales of visits to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The church includes within its walls the last 5 Stations of the Cross:

10..........The site where Jesus is stripped of His garments

11 & 12...The site of Christ's crucifixion and death on the cross

13...........Where His body was removed from the cross and prepared for burial

14...........Jesus' tomb

That's my preface. Read about the place. It's amazing."

Read it all - a great post, I think.

I'll be saying a Mass for Nicky's intention and, from the haven of the Diocese of Fort Worth, wish him all the best. Its not easy being a padre at the best of times - harder still under the aegis of Jefferts Schori.

God bless,

LSP

Nice Pearls.

Well that's just great.

Some of you might have noticed that Boy Bishop Jefferts Schori was in Dallas the other day. She said Muslims and Gays were 'scapegoats'. Scapegoats for what? Global warming? Nuclear Prolification? World wide poverty? Injustice in the workforce? You know, if it wasn't for all those evil legions of interior designer Shiite Muslims Houston would be just fine. Whatever.

I'm off to shoot a gun.

LSP

Fighting Monkey - No Gun

Maccacco and Hapless Hound

Up at first light to the maniacal and strangled crowing of roosters; this woke up the neighbouring dogs and I thought grimly of the famous fighting monkey, Jacco Macacco. Jacco's 1820's trick in the Westminster Pit involved taking a club to the heads of proto-pit bulls and destroying them, much to the dismay of their unfortunate backers. Macacco met his match in Puss, a savage brute that equalled the vicious monkey's ferocity; they did for each other. But don't misunderstand me, I'm not an advocate of monkey baiting.

Anyway, after getting over vengeful thoughts viz. backyard menagerie, managed to get to the stables, say Morning Prayer and have an equine workout - attempted a flying change and nearly ended up in the air myself - well, pride comes before a fall. Then, after much self-control, just stopped myself from buying a 'comfort gun', namely a nicely sporterised Lee at a reasonable price. Well, it'll be there tomorrow - I hope.

For those interested in unpicking the labourite web of deceit, check out Barking Spider, for a take on recent Anglican goings on have a look at the pretentiously titled 'Quo Vadis Redux'.

God bless,

LSP

Headspace

CZ from B&BS armoury

Apologies to all but I've badly neglected the gun side of things; so here's some headspace technics from Tom at Boomers - no mean info for those, like me, who enjoy milsurp rifles and more importantly shooting them. Thanks mate; you'll be glad to know I made the effort to get my Lee's headspace checked by a 'smith...

A lot of people think they understand headspace, but they really don't. Even a lot of gunsmiths, reloaders, and otherwise intelligent people. The Parson asked me if I might be interested in writing a guest bit and I thought this is something that would be worth addressing as there are so many mythical ideas out there. Static headspacing is pretty simple, either the cartridge chambers within .001-3" of chamber print for cartridge or it doesn't. There are many problems, though, with this simplistic view of headspace. I shall attempt to address them in detail.

To simplify things, we shall assume that all cartridges are exactly the proper over-all length, which is of course not true with any factory ammo. We shall also assume that the chamber throating has been properly done. Also a falsehood in 99.9% of factory barrels.

First off, SAAMI specs are sloppy. Going by field gauges and go and no-go gauges will keep your case from rupturing, which is a good thing, but it isn't much of a path to accuracy or precision. Gauges generally accept .005-.006", I don't. You will see why this is important shortly.

Headspace is not a static thing in the firing of any kind of metallic cartridge firearm for a number of reasons. First off, there are the variable of action strength, design, and metallurgy. Break action guns are the springiest and falling block and interrupted thread artillery style breeches (almost never seen on small arms any more) are the stoutest. Therefore starting with perfect or near perfect headspace in a static sense in break action guns is especially critical. The weaker the action the more critical it is to get things right. Blowback semi-autos, delayed or not, also are sensitive not only in accuracy but in probability of misfire if headspacing is not correct.

When you have chambered a round in your firearm with a proper OAL cartridge and SAAMI acceptable static headspace all is apparently well. What goes un-noticed is what actually happens when you press the trigger and fire the round, as it's not directly observable under normal conditions in most types of firearms. When the hammer drops/striker moves forward and the primer is whacked, you are hammering SHARPLY AND VERY HARD on the primer if all is well. The denting of the primer cup absorbs much, but not all of this energy. You are whacking a tube of thin, soft, brass (varying in those properties somewhat depending on how it was annealed and if it has work hardened or not) and more gives than just the dent in the primer. We assumed proper OAL and chamber but keep in mind for reliability: If the chamber is wrong or the OAL is wrong, or both, you may get a misfire beause the primer strike mostly punted the cartridge forward in the chamber and you got a light primer strike resultant of that.

Break open guns have a great virtue for examining the results of this because as my amigo Mike Bellm of Bellm TCs has said many a time, "You CAN DIRECTLY not only SEE what happens, BUT you can also measure the results." He and I have discussed this many a time regarding accuracy and misfires, He is lucky enough to be working with BPI/CVA/Bergara Barrels on product designs and manufacturing methods and recently was over in Spain working with the Bergara Barrel Factory. In a recent email from Mike, he mentioned:

This today from the head tech at BPI/CVA/Bergara that I work with regularly and who took me to the Bergara plant in Spain the first of last month:

"I don't remember if I mentioned it to you or not but I dropped some loaded .35 Whelen rounds in a barrel and measured from the breech to the ctg base.

Average about .005". This was very consistent through this partial box. I
then dropped in a few misfired rounds that had been hit by the firing pin.
The average measurement went from .005" to .014"! Proof enough for me to
believe that the blow of the firing pin is crushing the shoulder."

..... and I have to add, all the more reason for YOU to be able to take the measurements and find these things for yourself, then make your own corrections as necessary.

That is a total collapse of .009" at the shoulder!

Rather interesting, is that not? Belts on belted magnums provide some insurance against such behavior, provided the belt is properly placed on the cartridge and the chamber is properly cut for the belt, which is not always true. I've gotten A-Square brass where the belt was misplaced significantly. I'm naming them directly here because if you Google their brass prices for safari rifle cartridge brass alone, not cartridges, you can see why it was vexing when they refused to talk to me about possibly replacing it with dimensionally correct brass. Didn't answer the phone messages or emails. Belts .008-.011 short of appropriate forward bearing surface are not acceptable and are of no use but scrap/example of shoddy product. I know this is a Christian page but some things aren't very forgivable if you wish to remain in business. Anyway, if the belt is wrong or the chamber isn't cut properly for the belt, your headspace will be variable dynamically even with a belted magnum designed to prevent case movement and assure proper headpsace because it will be headspacing via projectile on the chamber throat/barrel leade and/or case mouth and/or shoulder. Rimmed cartridge movement is primarily determined by the strength of the rim, provided the chamber and OAL are correct and the counterbore for the rim is correct.

So, you see why .001-.002' of headspace is a good idea for consistent shooting now? Dynamically, your acceptable static headpace very well may not be acceptable.

You can test your own firearms by loading empty cartridges with deactivated primers to correct OAL and "firing them". Then you'll know how much variation there is in the brass you are using/whether or not there are chamber issues. Then fix what needs to be fixed, if you find much variation. You'll make misfires very unlikely and gain accuracy.

Remember, mi amigos, all firearms may be interesting, but only accurate firearms are particularly interesting for anything but hanging on the wall and making loud noises.

Happy Shooting.

And a blessed Advent,

LSP

Day in the Country

Got to the Stables early and the barn cats galloped for their food; you' think they were starving, which they aren't. Regardless, it was neat to watch them race across the grass and better still to approximate to the same thing on horseback.

galloping cat

Later in the day, towards dusk, the air filled with birds - a cacophony of the things, fiercely strutting about and pecking for food. There must have been hundreds of them around the parsonage; incredibly noisy but interesting to watch.

After watching them carry on for a time I drove off to say Mass and was a little worried to see several pews full of silent, reverent people when I arrived at the church. Was I late?! No, they were just keen and intent on saying their prayers. I love that.

You'll forgive me for not commenting on the unfolding Warmist scandal, yet more attacks by Muslim 'martyrs', Episcopal priests praying to Aztec 'saints' (and Muslim martyrs) and a strange old woman in the diocese of D.C. who celebrated a neo-pagan 'Croning' liturgy in the National Cathedral. More of that anon.

Keep pulling the trigger.

LSP