Expanding the reach.

Posted on July 9, 2014 by Oleg Volk

My photo accompanies Eugene Volokh’s article in Washington Post.

Posted in camera and lens, civil rights | Tagged | Comments Off on Expanding the reach.

The price of diffuse light

Posted on July 9, 2014 by Oleg Volk

Until recently, I used a 10ft x 20ft popup tent for getting softer light on sunny days. Bought for $1200, the tent lasted five years and was well worth the expense and the effort required to set it up. A couple of weeks ago, the tent was damaged by a storm and repairing it would take a while. That prompted me to try a more portable solution than the 90-pound pop-up.

In movie-making, the standard solution is silk stretched on a frame and raised on two stands. Due to the heavy-duty stands and sandbags required to keep it in place, the entire set of equipment is actually heavier than the tent, but individual components are much lighter and easier to move.

I just priced the 12ft x 12ft kit at B&H: $1520 with shipping. All that for one light modifier. If you ever wondered why professional photography is expensive, this is one of the reasons.

Posted in camera and lens | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Recoil is relative.

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Oleg Volk

Dan Coonan is very fond of saying that shooting his gun is an experience. It does have more muzzle flash and recoil and muzzle rise than a typical wonder-9.

Actress Morrigan Sanders, age 16, doesn’t usually shoot Coonans. But not because they kick too much…

…and more because they don’t kick or flash enough. Her toys are chambered in 44Mag and, for more laid-back experience, 45Colt. Full-house 44Mag is a nice handfull even in her large, heavy Astra revolver — enough bang to rattle her braces.

And now you know what girly girls shoot when they aren’t pretending to like pink 25ACP automatics.

 

Posted in ammunition, interesting people, pistol | Tagged , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Do you see pop-up ads on my blog?

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Oleg Volk

A friend and I just discovered that, once in a while, a full-screen pop-up ad shows up on my WordPress blog page. Is anyone else seeing that? If so, for how long?

Any idea what could have cause this? I know that I’ve not signed up for any ad campaigns. My WordPress install is hosted on a paid server.

Posted in advice requested | 20 Comments

Boberg XR45-S is finally shipping

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Oleg Volk

If you place your order by Friday, July 11th, they will supply two extra magazines (for a total of four), plus one item of your choice from their hat & t-shirt designs. At $1200, it’s an an expensive pistol, but it is also a most efficient and effective design in terms of low recoil, barrel length relative to the size, magazine capacity for the size, and reliability. Controlled feeding and fully supported chamber make it far more dependable than a micro 1911.

Posted in pistol, weapon | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Boberg XR45-S is finally shipping

In appreciation of religious benedictions

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Oleg Volk

I can’t believe in all gods at once. If I choose the Greek pantheon, the Hindu gods would be neglected. If the Christian god, then what of the spirits the local natives used to honor?

At the same time, I am grateful to be included in a pre-meal blessing or to be told to “go with god”. It makes more sense, to me at least, to listen past the specific phrasing to the intent of the speaker. It doesn’t matter if the blessing speaks of gods’ favor, good hunting or eluei-leiu eue — so long as the sentiment thereby expressed is friendly.

So I am quite confused by people who get offended when private individuals, not government functionaries, wish them a merry Christmas. How much must a person like needless conflict to take offense at a friendly overture?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 12 Comments

Arbitrary laws erode respect for the law makers and law enforcers

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Oleg Volk

I just found out that dashboard video recorders that are ubiquitous in Russia and fairly common in the US are illegal in Austria and Switzerland. It’s a bit difficult to have any respect for laws when they are as arbitrary as this.

Anther example: sound suppressors are over the counter items in New Zealand and France, forbidden or very heavily restricted in many other countries. Again, hard to consider most laws as necessary or even helpful when their absence causes no visible problems.

A passing a law indicates such a grave concern that its authors approve of using government troops — and police are a type of troops — to eradicate some practice, property or belief. At various times, laws forbade things that we find benign or irrelevant, and often enforced the prohibitions with deadly force, torture and bloody mayhem.

It would be strange to Americans if cops arrested people for having catnip or coffee, but they consider harsh sentences for other herbs or seeds to be normal. And Americans walking around with folding knives in their pockets wonder why British or German cops would arrest people for that. Attitudes evolve over time, too. Used to be that dynamite was freely available in stores and condoms were not…and even advertising them was risky.

Unnecessary prohibitions that aren’t enforced merely erode what little respect lawmakers had to begin with. Enforced prohibitions immediately mark politicians and police as the enemy of the people, and eventually the first reaction to headlines about dead cops becomes “I wonder what they did to deserve it?” Nobody even wonders about most of the politicians, elected or appointed.

Posted in civil rights | Tagged , | 9 Comments

Much orange

Posted on July 3, 2014 by Oleg Volk

Posted in interesting people | Tagged , , , , , , | 13 Comments

The Importance of Shooting One-Handed: new on AllOutdoor

Posted on July 2, 2014 by Oleg Volk


A consideration when picking your handgun

Posted in pistol, training, weapon | Tagged | 3 Comments

Enemies of freedom in their own words.

Posted on July 2, 2014 by Oleg Volk

Tennessee Firearms Association just got gun rights survey results back from the sitting politicians. In total, over 2/3 of the current state politicians are anti-gun and against greater voter control. Of those who are pro-gun, a couple are independent, the rest Republicans. All but one Democrat in the state government is anti-gun by their own admission.

(Link updated)

Posted in civil rights, rkba | Tagged | 6 Comments

Moving from gun control to people control.

Posted on July 1, 2014 by Oleg Volk

Post-WW1 Germany had gun control long before Hitler. In large part, it was the reaction to the civil war between Communists and the rest of the populace. One of the first actions of the Nazis after they gained control was the reduction of the number and severity of technical prohibitions on weapons.

Nazis were not anti-gun. They were merely against guns for their political enemies, and for their prey like Gypsies and Jews. A good Nazi could have a pistol or a rifle. By 1938, a Jew couldn’t even own a stick for self-defense. You might recall where that trend led. This kind of thing had also been done in America through Jim Crow laws designed to disarm Negroes.

We are now seeing this trend revived in the US. Democrat Senator Yee is indicted for gun running to gangs. Democrat federal administration runs guns to Mexican drug cartels. New York Mayors run around with numerous armed bodyguards. “Special” people get special treatment, while the prohibitionists try to disqualify as many Americans as possible with as many excuses as they can dream up. It is, in effect, an effort to revive the feudal Second Estate with an exclusive right to weapons and use of force. They mean to rule and their rules would not be enlightened or selfless.

Posted in civil rights, rkba, self-defense, weapon | 8 Comments

Upgrading a rail-less M1911

Posted on July 1, 2014 by Oleg Volk

 

Iver Johnson 9mm Eagle M1911 with a Recover grip/accessory rail combination.

The original 9mm is the bottom pistol.  Changeover took about two minutes, the resulting grip is slightly thicker than the original and a little softer in the hand.

Posted in light/laser, pistol | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Improving M1 carbine sights: New on AllOutdoor

Posted on June 30, 2014 by Oleg Volk


Red dots to the rescue

Posted in rifle, weapon | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Improving M1 carbine sights: New on AllOutdoor

Death by Chocolate

Posted on June 30, 2014 by Oleg Volk

This rifle has a name. Sweet!

The color actually blends in the environment pretty well. Spotted at Condition One carbine course. Excellent training, by the way, very similar to the Swiss approach.

 

Posted in rifle | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Personal endorsement: XR45-S

Posted on June 29, 2014 by Oleg Volk

I currently carry XR9L and 9S pistols as the compact/subcompact options, and recommend XR45S for those who prefer larger bores. You can get cheaper subcompact guns, but none combine the long bullpup barrel, the low recoil of rotary breech, the extra round held by the magazine that doesn’t require a follower, and the precision machining ensuring the gun’s longevity. I think that Arne Boberg is a brilliant designer and a competent engineer to make his concepts work well.

 

Posted in pistol, weapon | Tagged , | 10 Comments

Recoil in sub-compact 45ACP pistol

Posted on June 29, 2014 by Oleg Volk

Recently, I had a chance to fire a few rounds through one of the Boberg XR45-S prototypes. It’s a controlled-feed bullpup pistol with 3.75″ barrel is a short 5.77″ slide. I wrote about it in detail earlier.

For scale, Sarah is about 5’1″ and under 100 pounds.

Subjective impression from firing 230-gr ball ammunition: about the same as shooting 9mm 147gr subsonics through CZ75 Compact. Slightly more muzzle rise, slightly less push against the palm. I could fire a hundred rounds without tiring. Considering how subcompact M1911s with shorter 3-inch barrels jump on recoil, this is quite an accomplishment. The pistol is fractionally larger than the 9mm version and less pocketable, so I’d like to see it available with a longer slide. It’s already available with extended barrels, but those don’t increase the sight radius. A version similar to 9L, with roughly a 4.45″ barrel would be my top choice, but this current variant is still quite nice. Better performance than the traditional micro 45s, and rated for 45 Super.

Posted in pistol | Tagged | 2 Comments

Teach the next generation.

Posted on June 27, 2014 by Oleg Volk

Gun safety, effective marksmanship, and the ethics governing the use of such skills.

 

Posted in interesting people, rifle, training, weapon | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Learning to fly

Posted on June 26, 2014 by Oleg Volk

Posted in interesting people | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

United States going the way of the USSR

Posted on June 26, 2014 by Oleg Volk

Back in the USSR, something as simple as waxed paper was unavailable. The explanation I got was that it was possible to make them into primitive printing plates with a typewriter. Not sure how true the explanation is, but it fit well with the paranoid attitude of the Soviet government. The point is that I had no idea waxed paper existed until after I left the USSR for a more free world.

The process is repeating in the United States. Every year, something becomes illegal or plain unavailable. Last year, it was laser kits over 5mW. Previously, chemistry learning sets lost many of the chemical materials previously supplied. Next year, it will be something else. And once a few years pass, the next generation won’t even know that they are missing something.

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free” wrote Goethe. He had a good point.

Posted in civil rights | 9 Comments

Empathising with hoplophobes.

Posted on June 26, 2014 by Oleg Volk

Some people, more often the left-leaning types, get bent out of shape by kids playing with toy guns or learning to shoot at a young age. Many schools ban anything that looks or can be used as a weapon. To understand their reaction, we only need to consider how the right-leaning folks would react to seeing kids playing with a corn-cob pipe, or a sex toy, or some other item that’s harmless in itself but morally repugnant to them. Many who admit guns as necessary, still prefer to exclude them from polite society. Other try to do the same for other everyday things…with about the same level of justification.

Posted in civil rights, rkba | Tagged , | 11 Comments