winsor

I left the party to get some sleep, and fire engines passed us going the other direction at the end of the road. We were sober, and noted that skydivers, absinthe, bonfires and emergency vehicles did not bode well. A frantic call a moment later verified our worst fears. We stayed clear until the morning, and the air of shock hung heavy when we showed up at the DZ before breakfast. We got the details of the event, as well as assurances that "he's going to be fine; he was awake and talking, and they took him to the best burn unit you could hope for." I think he understood the reality of the situation, because he was quoted as saying "take care of my daughter" before they life-flighted him out. I am not sure if it is more merciful to have hope or to realize that there is none. Having spent all too much time in trauma centers and ICUs (as a customer) and had family members recover from severe burns, I was subject to no such illusions. I went to the hospital to offer support for his family, since watching a loved one die in a strange city is as tough an experience as you could go through, and to say goodbye to Paul. Talking to the doctor, he initially suggested that there was an outside chance for survival - since making it even that long was a testament to just how tough Paul was - but he then admitted that the odds were nil, and that to go peacefully was the best for which to hope. I was doing okay until I saw a hand-lettered card from his daughter that said "I love you, Daddy," at which point I lost it. Since red eyes and tear-streaked faces were the norm in the waiting room, I fit right in. I was on autopilot from that point until about half an hour later, when my brother called me to tell me to report to Abington Hospital where my sister had just given birth to twins. When I am shopping for birthday presents for the twins, I sometimes find I have a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. Paul was one of the good guys, and it was an honor to know him. I try not to take friends for granted, since the good times are too precious to waste. Blue skies and gentle breezes my friend, Winsor

It's a flamebot, strictly pseudointelligent.

As I recall, Gunny Hathcock was given to the use of the Unertl 10X scope. I am reminded of an anecdote whereby someone marveling at a Yoshimura Honda 750 asked Pops Yoshimura "Is this the same bike I could buy at any Honda dealership?" Pops replied "Is same. Not same-same." Thus, the rifles you might see in competition might look deceptively similar to off-the-shelf models. Do not be fooled. While the Remington 700BDL is an extremely nice rifle, the 40X from the Custom Shop is a different animal altogether, above and beyond being a short-action version. When I first took my brother to the range with mine, he touched off one round which took out the center of the X at 100 meters, looked up at me and said "Whoah, this thing is brilliant!" In some events, the equipment bears only a passing resemblance to commercial equipment. In Benchrest competition, for example, competitors will routinely incorporate any change that provides an advantage within the rules, since group size has nothing to do with appearances. With the 40X this is limited to a superbly bedded synthetic stock, but some rifles are configured so they are basically useless for anything but Benchrest. One thing to remember is that the effects of range are nonlinear. One cannot simply dope the rifle and cartridge in at 100 yards and multiply the effect by 10 at 1,000 yards. The effect of crosswind, for example, is very limited at 100 yards, since the bullet has not had opportunity to be accelerated by the crosswind. By 1,000 yards, however, the bullet is traveling at equilibrium with windage. This is to say that, with a 20 fps crosswind from the right, in the first 100 yards the bullet is beginning to accelerate to the left but is still headed pretty much in line with the bore, but by 1,000 yards the bullet is traveling to the left at 20 fps and no longer sees a crosswind. Another factor that comes into play with crosswinds has to do with spin. Given the same 20 fps crosswind from the right, a rifle with a right hand twist will hit lower than it would without a crosswind, while a rifle with a left hand twist will hit higher. It works the same as with a curveball. While you can take a car, up its horsepower greatly and tinker with the suspension, you are kidding yourself if you think you have a Winston Cup machine on your hands. You are also kidding yourself if you think that driving like a maniac on the highways makes you a contender if you wind up in the Daytona 500. Similarly, the people who set the bar for long-range marksmanship start with a great deal of natural ability, understand the complexity and subtlety of the dynamics involved at both a theoretical and practical level, have truly outstanding equipment available, and have spent a great deal of time at the reloading bench and the range. You are not likely to duplicate their results by buying a rifle, scope and ammo and sort of figuring it out on your own (though it is possible - if only in novels or Hollywood). Long range marksmanship is both gratifying and humbling. Enjoy the shots that work out, and spend the rest of your time figuring out why the others did not go exactly where you would have expected. BSBD, Winsor

The .308 approaches an optimal balance of accuracy and terminal ballistics. IIRC, the .308 has more wins in benchrest competition than any other cartridge. The configuration of the cartridge makes for very uniform ignition and very efficient burn. The ballistic coefficients of available bullets can be quite good, and such bullets as the Sierra 168 gr Match King tend to have satisfactory terminal ballistics at useable ranges. When you get rainbow trajectories, there is a lot going on as you go further and further downrange. As noted, wind drift is an issue, but the bullet will pull to the left or right as a function of spin. Since the orientation of the bullet tends to remain colinear with the bore, incident wind is less and less point-on the more it drops. Like a curve-ball, the bullet will thus drift right for a left-hand twist, and right for a left-hand twist barrel. Most tactical users have benefit of laser rangefinders and a dope book, so putting the shot dead-on is not much of a problem within operational ranges. Hitting a human-head size target at 1,000 meters is a non-event; USDA Large eggs at 300 yards are a typical target for a Remington 40X in .308. As a general rule of thumb, if I can see it, I can hit it. There are relatively few places where a 1,000 yard shot or greater is indicated or useful on this continent, and, unless you are considering competing for the Wimbledon Cup, shots over a few hundred yards are largely theoretical. If you want long-range entertainment, a .50 BMG is the hot tip. The LAR Grizzly Big Boar is good for 1/4 MOA, and the muzzle brake, coupled with its 35 pound weight, makes it much less nasty to shoot than a 7mm or .300 magnum. At any rate, you have reached the point of diminishing returns by the time you get to an excruciatingly accurate .308. If you need much more, an air strike is in order. BSBD, Winsor

A guy walks into a bar and says "all lawyers are assholes!" A guy at the end of the bar says "hey, I resent that!" "What, are you a lawyer?" "No, I'm an asshole."

I saw the esteemed Winsor Naugler demonstrate that at Quincy a few years ago. I think he was awarded some plaster for his trouble... Kevin K. Nah, I simply had the presence of mind to flare sink the canopy. FWIW, I had just swapped my RWPC for Hank Ellis' 7TU for the jump, and overestimated the penetration I might get. Setting up for edge of the landing area, I realized I was actually aimed for the spinning prop of one of Paul Fayard's CASAs - thus the climbing up of risers. Once I was clear of aircraft, I transitioned to "landing" mode and buried the toggles. The rear risers would have been okay, as would simply doing a proper PLF. As it was, things sped up FAST, and my arrival was a bit more brisk than I would have preferred. It is said that the likelihood of doing something stupid is directly proportional to the size and importance of your audience, and I thus broke my foot in front of the bulk of the skydiving community armed with an array of cameras. Smooth. All things considered, it would have been a lot more ignominious to have rendered one of Paul's Garrett 331s inop by landing into a spinning prop. Thus, I think I came out smelling like a rose by simply crunching a tarsal. Cheap tuition, all things being equal. BSBD, Winsor

WHAT?

Boston. Nicholas left in 1748, so details are sketchy. I did not look for relatives when I was working in Buelach, so I only have 18th century Canadian records with which to work - and I can only guess how reliable they are. It should likely be "Nagler," or "one who pounds nails," but literacy was not a big thing amongst the unwashed masses at the time. BSBD, Winsor

With a name like Winsor Naugler III, Winsor You can drop the III at will. It's not like you are King of Prussia. Yeah, but I'm still stuck with two misspelled last names. It's Swiss, anyway. SWISS!?!?!? Keine Scheisse.

Agreed. We have become a society that says, "To hell with the consequences, there shall be no discussion, the immediate and certain human toll and costs are worthwhile for there is the possibility of bad stuff happening. Chances are that I won't have a potentially fatal malfunction, but on the chance that bad stuff may happen I jump with a reserve, even though it was bad for my personal economy. So do most other skydivers. Your arguments are getting pretty thin. Where in the USA do murderers and enemy combatants have a right to buy firearms? Uptown.

With a name like Winsor Naugler III, Winsor You can drop the III at will. It's not like you are King of Prussia. Yeah, but I'm still stuck with two misspelled last names. It's Swiss, anyway.

With a name like Winsor Naugler III, you will forgive me if I do not sympathize with your urge to make fun of someone who had no say in what he was named. Ad Hominem (circumstantial) is pretty weak. As far as Nancy Peolsi goes, the contempt she has garnered is well earned. Viewing G. W. Bush, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck as blithering idiots does not make one a Democrat; noting that Nancy Pelosi is truly evil does not make one a Republican. FWIW, I change the channel when any of the aforementioned people come on the tube, since any of them make me queasy. BSBD, Winsor

Maybe you should go to college and find out for yourself. There are colleges and there are colleges. Not all professors are created equal, as well. As far as relegating the reports of civilians spitting on soldiers in uniform to unsubstantiated rumor, the professors in question: A) Were not there and B) Did not do their homework A significant amount of academia in every generation is dedicated to the proliferation of nonsense. All too much of what shows up in some textbooks is verifiably false. If you choose to parrot accounts put forth by your professors, take care not to include in your audience eyewitnesses to the events in question.

Hey, I have in front of me a picture of my son in Santa's lap, so the photographic proof is irrefutable.

"Belief" and "science" are mutually exclusive. Dubito ergo cogito and all that.

Really? I mean . . . REALLY? How did you arrive at this conclusion? There are many items that are registered with the government every day and to my knowledge the purpose of the registry has little if anything to do with confiscation; airplanes, boats, cars, people, dogs, cats, bicycles, houses, businesses. How, exactly, did you arrive at your conclusion? Because registration has routinely been used as a basis for confiscation. Any time you have a governmental body say "trust me," you can rest assured that any such trust is unwarranted. Your standpoint on the subject of firearms is one of consummate ignorance. That you insist on expounding on the subject is nauseating. Speak not of what you know not.

Your standpoint is that of dumbing down the issue to the lowest common denominator, and that offends the hell out of me. It has the same level of brilliance of the people who, after noting that a huge number of social ills were related to alcohol, saw fit to illegalize the stuff and thus make it unavailable. Boy, was that a brilliant success. What is the solution to either? Personal responsibility. In Switzerland, everyone I knew had a fully automatic firearm and ammunition at home, not to mention sundry personal firearms. One of my friends there pointed out that when Swiss people do kill each other they do not tend to do so with firearms, since firearms entail a great deal of responsibility and they are avoided when acting irresponsibly. They may thus stab or bludgeon someone - but not shoot. You would not, of course, understand. Anyone who is not fit to possess a loaded firearm is unfit to populate a free society. For you to impose standards on responsible people based on the limits you envision appropriate for the criminally insane makes for a society in which the criminally insane are at home and responsible people are at a disadvantage. As usual, you are looking at the wrong part of the equation. The idea that applying sufficient constraints to people will force them to behave is absurd. 88 people were killed in the Bronx by a pissed off boyfriend with $1 worth of gasoline. How do you keep gasoline out of the hands of crazy people? Even granting there is a problem, nothing you have ever said on the subject suggests that you would recognize a solution if you saw it. BSBD, Winsor

Are you saying that the system we have in place now works? About as well as every other government program ever invented. Ok, so what's is the plan of the NRA to keep guns out of the hands of crazy people? Why don't we make firearms as illegal and unavailable as, say, marijuana and cocaine? That would be brilliant! How come nobody has thought of that? If nobody had guns, everyone would be happy and get along fine. Like in Rwanda. Of course, you still might have the odd machete lying around, but nothing is perfect. If we could only pass enough laws against scary things, everything would be all right. That's the problem - we don't have enough laws. How could we have been so lax? We should keep passing laws until everything is perfect - it's so obvious.

Oh, sometimes it has been known to work. I can think of a number of examples in which it has. In one case in particular, a couple of professionals (engineers, IIRC) wound up married with children. YMMV. BSBD, Winsor

Pelosi is an evil piece of shit. I will take someone given to tears over the malevolent harpy he replaced any day.

Maybe vaccines are related to climate change. Anyhow, I do not see autism as being all that bad of a thing. I sure as hell do not envy neurotypicals.

If you go with a Henry Deringer knockoff, you have a single-shot by default. The fact that it's a front-stuffer does not affect its utility much. The .41 caliber used to shoot Lincoln was a case in point of how useless is the genre. Lincoln was merely wounded by the pistol, which lodged a ball right inside his skull. It was being pithed by his doctors while fishing for the ball that proved fatal. By and large, a single-shot derringer is liable to do little more than annoy a serious attacker; it makes little difference whether it is loaded or not. If you need a means of self-defense, get a good pair of running shoes. Put one in front of the other, repeat as necessary until out of trouble. BSBD, Winsor

He is a mulatto - neither black nor white.

You don't have a lot of options when it comes to single-shot metallic-cartridge Derringers. The reason is that they are rather useless in general. .41RF .45Colt .22s

Can you not see the difference between criticizing faith as a general concept and criticizing a specific faith in something that's demonstrably inaccurate? Which "Specific Faith" is demostrably inaccurate? The easiest are those whose tracts are subject to independent verification (or refutation). The Book of Mormon fails miserably on each and every specific subject to cross-checking, and Joseph Smith's performance when "translating" hieroglyphics was shown to be pure bluff when checked against the Rosetta Stone. Scientology is such a work of fantasy that taking it seriously enough to refute is difficult. Superman comic books are easily as technically sound. The Koran is such a vague and garbled ("poetic") set of writings that any literal analysis falls apart at the outset. The Christian Scriptures are a compilation of writings prepared by various sources with differing agenda, and redacted later to achieve further agenda. The Tanakh is a compendium of Bronze-Age writings of varying reliability and intent. Many of the writings may be checked against independent sources, and some correlate badly. The Book of Esther, for example, is the account of events that were purported to have occurred during the Babylonian Exile; rather detailed records on the part of the Persians make no note of what would have been rather significant events from their standpoint. Is there any merit to any of these writings? From an historical standpoint, sort of. Bereshit through Bamidbar (Genesis to Numbers), as compiled by Ezra the Scribe, constitute a sort of prequel to Devarim (Deuteronomy - "the book"). Understanding the mythology of the people is important, but taking it literally on a word-for-word basis is patently absurd. There is something to be learned from the Christian Scriptures, as well - so long as one is careful to consider the source(s) and take the accounts with a large grain of salt. The Koran, and to a more blatant extent the Book of Mormon, are shameless works of fantasy claiming follow-up status with the existing popular works (Hebrew and Christian Scriptures). Dianetics is such a dog's breakfast of plagiarism and fantasy that its appeal is only to those to whom reality has no sway. Faith is only required of falsehood. The truth will withstand any scrutiny, and is not threatened by skepticism. BSBD, Winsor