Time Properly Wasted

Let me begin by quickly summing up our status in the struggle to remain housed. We have all but eliminated the rentals. As I said to Mother, the decent ones (such as the one we're being asked to leave) are unaffordable; and the affordable ones are indecent.

Recently we both got the feeling that we ought to try buying. This would be utterly impossible for us but for the fact that the same spirit that is nudging us periodically now is an old friend whom I recall giving me a shove back in 1973 to join Uncle Sam's Flying Circus. Because I followed that powerful prompting, look at the blessings that I've received:

Shayne

Joseph ($15)

Autumn ($25)

Hyrum ($11.50)

The Old GI Bill which helped us through school after I left the service.

A VA home loan which helped us buy the house on College Ave.

We're waiting now for the VA to tell us whether we've qualified again for such a loan, and, if so, how much we can expect. Until we know these things, all we can do is look at an occasional house and hope that we'll have the bucks to get it. One house which seems very attractive to us is in St. Anthony. We were looking at pictures of it just yesterday on the computer. I don't yet know whether it was one of the houses that Len told me about recently on the phone. We hope to go up to see it soon.

Now to my muttons, as Twain would say. I killed a couple of hours with Aric Armell and his son from Colorado, AJ yesterday morning. We had 15 eggs that were way out of date. We drove to "the Cedars" a place where we've done lots of shooting before. We spread the eggs around on the hillside.

Now it had been my presupposition that, since my Savage Mako .22 LR is zeroed to strike dead on at 50 yards, we would probably set up the rifles at some distance between that and 100. But I was forgetting that, to Aric, all rifles are sniping rifles. He drove the truck back to 225 yards. I sighed. If we'd been shooting .22 Centerfires, that would have been fine. But plain old .22s have a little trouble at such distances. We had used them on gongs out to 500 yards before, and they had so little energy left by the time they got that far out that the "ding!" was almost inaudible when it came strolling back to us at about the speed the bullet had started out with.

But the gongs were about 15" wide and 2 feet tall. We could paint them bright colors so that they were easy to see. These grade AAA Large eggs weren't all that large, especially at 225 yards. We could almost always hit within inches of them, but in two hours, only Aric had hit one. The dust we'd kicked up on the others made them more and more difficult to see. Someone had tied up a frying pan at about 200 yards, and when you hit it, it would ring a little and spin around. I hit it a few times and felt a little better. But I still felt bad about hitting no eggs at all.

One might say that this was a waste of time and a disappointing one at that. But any day out shooting is better than any day when you don't. It is either time wisely used or time properly wasted.

The Savage Mako

Erik Green tries out the Mako.

This is destined to disappoint those who wish that Brother Jim (or Uncle Jim or Grandpa Jim or dad Jim or son Jim or whatever he might be to you) would lighten up already about the guns. I regret to inform you that such a day will never dawn.

There are several reasons why I enjoy firearms.

They are Historical. Perhaps no human invention has been used to make more history, good and bad, than the firearm. Ships, trains, planes, terraced farming, the telegraph, the telephone, television, radio, and the internet all put together would be hard pressed, I think, to make more history than have firearms.

Firearms are more reliable than just about any other human invention. True, there are enough break-downs to keep lots of gunsmiths busy in any population of 100,000 or so, but that's nothing compared to the rate at which our cars and trucks need repair or new parts. I have one rifle about which I recently wrote a post which is 108 years old and still going strong.

Firearms are as lovely as swords, as elegant as dress daggers, as versatile as a P-51 Mustang, and as handy as a walking stick.

This one is called the Savage Mako. The maker, Savage, has been around a long time, more than a century, I'm sure. This model, called the Mako, has a bull barrel (heavy and untapered) which is meant to minimize the vibration which does occur microscopically in any barrel as the bullet moves though it so quickly, rather like turning on the hose suddenly and watching the end of it flip wildly around on the grass for a few moments. This microscopic flipping around can ruin accuracy, thus defeating the purpose of the firearms. Hence, bull barrels and the modern synthetic reinforced barrels to minimize all that vibration.

Since this model was named for the Mako shark, the cut-outs in the forearm are in the shape of sharks' teeth and two representations of sharks are visible on the stock, one on the right side of the receiver, the other on the grip cap.

Savage has patended a device they call the "Accu-trigger." This allows the trigger pull to be very light, thus minimizing unwanted movement at the moment of firing which can ruin accuracy. It also avoids unintended discharges, since the safety in the trigger itself must be depressed all the way back to the face of the trigger before the trigger's rearward motion can begin.

The thumbhole stock is far from a new affectation, but it's fun and gives the shooter a detectable measure of increased confidence in the grip. Besides, it looks really cool and I'd never owned one before I got this one in November of 2006.

It shoots, too. Witness the group my wife fired in my blog about my reasons for being proud of her. As a final testimony of its prowess, here is a target which I fired at 25 yards not long ago. The first two bulls were not too impressive. But when I got my head together and really concentrated, the third bull shows what the rifle was capable of all along. There are three shots there!