Docwagon

Sure.

Wow, I'm glad someone asked. Yes, ME is linked to velocity. Muzzle Energy is nothing other than a cartridges's kinetic energy as it exits the weapon's barrel, so it only measures mass and velocity (weighted toward velocity). ME is only useful when combined with multiple other measurements, such as sectional density. Why? Because what makes a handgun cartridge effective is getting a bullet into a vital organ or the central nervous system and destroying tissue. Handgun cartridges do not wound via "energy dump" or the transferal of kinetic energy. So, using Muzzle Energy (kinetic energy) alone tells you nothing since it can’t tell you how far the projectile will penetrate or how much tissue it will destroy. Let's give an example with a wide spread so we can really see the difference. Let's say you had to choose to let me clothesline tackle you across your chest from a run or you have to let me shoot you in the chest with a 158 grain Hyrda-shock .357 magnum bullet. Taking the tackle results in you absorbing about 300 ft/lbs of energy over what taking the bullet does. Right across the chest. I'll probably knock you down, but will I inflict any significant injury? 300 ft/lbs of energy over the .357, after all... No, of course not. You'll get up and be fine. Your body can easily absorb that much energy without causing any wounds, and unlike the "low energy" .357, my tackle won't disrupt anything vital. Another example would be A .22LR and a well thrown baseball, which have about the same kinetic energy. You'd be hard pressed to slaughter a cow throwing a baseball at the animal's skull, yet slaughter houses have killed bajillions of cows with a .22 LR to the noggin. A .22 short, probably the least effective modern caliber, has more kinetic energy than an arrow launched from a high pull recurve bow rated for hunting grizzly bear. Anyone who shot a bear with a .22 short just wanted to die from a really pissed off bear. Now, let’s compare bullets to bullets, although since velocities and mass will be close to each other the differences won’t be so dramatic among the calibers I recommended to you. Take a look at this often cited chart: Which has the most kinetic energy? In order from top to bottom (in ft/lbs) 384 348 483 424 396 391 The .357 Sig has the highest, with about 40% more muzzle energy than the second 9mm offering (which has the lowest muzzle energy). Yet despite having 40% more muzzle energy it penetrates slightly LESS than the 9mm. Note that the first 9mm offering has MORE muzzle energy than the second, yet doesn’t penetrate as far. Note all of these cartridges would pass the FBI standard of 12” of penetration in a calibrated ballistic gel block. In short, despite a 40% swing in muzzle energy, they are all effective cartridges. Muzzle energy is often cited because it looks impressive and is easy to calculate and put on your box. Its especially popular with gimmick ammo that is incredibly light weight and prefragmented or super frangible because it makes it look more impressive in the marketing material. However, the most commonly cited measure of effectiveness continues to be the FBI standards, which of course measure penetration, or various studies on the results of real world shootings.

http://www.hawaiitelegraph.com/index.php/sid/217084746/scat/6b17ec7a35065289/ht/Hawaiian-womans-last-name-misspelled-to-fit-on-her-drivers-license#sthash.aUXo77zz.GFKjlvNa.dpuf Janice "Lokelani" Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele can't get her name to fit on her Hawaii driver's license. I bet her new license will fold out like an accordian.

Today's installment: What ammo should I use for self defense? This is an often overlooked part of the carry package. People spend hours of research and trial and error to get just the right gun in just the right caliber...and then slap whatever cartridges they find in there and figure it's cool. Or worse yet, they buy into some over-hyped wonder bullet that promises to vaporize bad guys, drive you home, call your lawyer, and explain what happened to your mom. 1) Assuming you listened to me in the old post and bought something between .380 and .45 ACP, buy quality hollow points from the following list: Speer Gold Dots Federal Hydra Shoks or HST Winchester Ranger SXT or PDX-1 Hornady Critical Defense Buffalo Bore (any of their hollowpoints) Remington Golden Saber 2) Steer clear of ultra lightweight all copper bullets (like DRT) or prefragmented bullets (like Glaser Safety Slug). They do NOT offer reliable penetration, especially if they hit a bone. A shallow messy wound is not what you want, you want a cartridge that gets a bullet deep enough to root around in a vital organ or the central nervous system. 3) Pay zero attention to "muzzle energy" that is listed on web sites, marketing material, or boxes of ammo. Muzzle energy is a worthless measurement in the effectiveness of a projectile weapon. It is used because it is both easy to figure and it looks impressive in the marketing. Say it with me: Muzzle energy is worthless absent much more important data. Repeat three times: Energy dump is make believe, it was discredited decades ago, and is irrelevant in handgun calibers. I will explain why if anyone's interested. 4) If you didn't listen to me and bought a smaller caliber than .380, carry ball ammo. You may be better off in a short barrel .380 to carry ball ammo. Ball ammo does not expand like a hollowpoint. Expansion is good, but not at the expense of penetration. If your caliber won't reliably penetrate 12" of ballistic gel with a hollowpoint, you need to carry ball. Actually, you need to get a better gun, but in the mean time carry ball. 5) Consider bonded ammunition. Bonded means the jacket is bonded to the core and they are much harder to separate. This means that the bullet is more likely to remain intact (and retain weight) as it goes through intermediate barriers. Let's say you are forced to shoot through a car window. A non-bonded bullet, especially lightweight and high velocity bullets, will start to fragment, especially hollowpoints. Fragments will not fly as true or penetrate as deeply as the original bullet. A bonded bullet resists that force. This is not as much of an issue with heavier, slower bullets. If you're carrying a .357 or 9mm, bonded can make a lot of difference. If you are carrying a .45, not so much. 6) You *MUST* test your carry gun with your carry bullets. I understand self defense rounds are expensive. I also understand the risk if they don't feed well in your handgun and you don't know it until you need it. I run a minimum of 50 rounds through a semi-auto before I'll carry a particular bullet. Revolvers are much more forgiving. 18 is plenty, and I'll roll check my actual carry rounds.* Doc's rules: Buy quality ammo from a reputable manufacturer Buy "normal" bullet weights. For example, 230 gr in a .45, 165-180 gr in a .40, 125-158 gr in a .357, etc. Steer clear of the all copper super light bullets. Test your gun/bullet combination before carrying. *How to roll test a revolver: This requires a revolver with an external hammer. A hammerless or concealed hammer revolver can not be roll checked. This must be done with the muzzle pointed in a safe direction, preferably into a sand barrel or into a stack of phone books. If you slip up, you can shoot a round off. 1) Load all chambers with your chosen carry ammo. 2) Close cylinder. 3) Pull hammer back with your off hand thumb while observing the cylinder for smooth rotation. 4) WITH YOUR OFF HAND THUMB STILL ON THE HAMMER AND HOLDING IT BACK, pull the trigger with your strong hand and GENTLY let the hammer down completely. Repeat steps 3-4 until you have rotated the cylinder through every chamber. If any chamber binds, remove the cartridges. There are two possibilities. One is a bent crane and the revolver needs to be repaired by a competent gunsmith or the manufacture. The second is one of your cartridges is out of spec and is too long, causing it to not seat fully in the cylinder, which causes it to drag. By experimenting with moving the cartridges around and seeing if the revolver binds on one particular cartridge regardless of its position or one particular chamber regardless of the cartridge, you can tell which without the use of tools.

Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2010 4:38 pm If I'd waited 4 days to get that info, it would have been exactly a year since my last log on date.

That totally works. When I squint they look the exact same.

USS Enterprise encounters Miley Cyrus

The more I watch this, the funnier it gets. She's making a complete mockery of building regulations.

WTF is a learning curb? That cartoonist probably also thinks it a mute point.

Ah, the relationships built in a gaming forum. I like this place.

Kids and guns, a two pronged approach. 1) Education. Kids in a gun owning household should not be kept in the dark. They should be taught that guns are dangerous and are not toys. Something like the NRA Eddie Eagle program is a great start. Keeping them in the dark only means they will be unsafe when they do come across a gun, plus the 'forbidden fruit' aspect. 2) Safe storage. Guns should be locked up or otherwise secured. Remember its not just your kids, its your kids' friends, etc. Having guns laying around the house is stupid. Period. I got a real good view of a young boy's blown out arm last night due to a violation of both of the above rules. Fractured ulna, significant tissue damage, and a long recovery in front of him. Don't be stupid and let your kids pay the price.

I finished "How America Eats" a while back and forgot I'd made this thread. Next up was "Mercury Rises". This is just a fun novel, the second in the Mercury series. If you are easily offended by folks poking at religion, you won't care for these. That said, I've yet to see anything I would consider degrading to religion, its just not very reverent. Essentially, the angels are a giant bureaucracy. Satan continues to rule Hell after his rebellion against God as part of his plea bargain, etc. The titular Mercury is a fairly low ranking angel in the Apocalypse Bureau, which keeps things on track for the eventual Apocalypse. Mercury Falls is the first book, and Mercury Rises is the second. Mercury Rises is split into two stories, one thousands of years before the first novel and the second immediately proceeding the events of the first novel. They are fun, if you liked Niel Gaiman's "Good Omens" and those sorts of books, you'll like these. Now I'm on "Average is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation". This is a combination future predicting/economics/politics book on the trend of the widening gap between the poor and the rich, and the resulting shrinking of the middle class. The author makes no moral claims, he simply lays out what is currently happening and what he foresees continuing to happen as the free market globalizes, machines do more and more of the labor, and there are fewer and fewer unskilled or semi-skilled jobs. I'm about 10% into it, and he believes the current middle class is predominately government employees and protected trades (ie, unions) who make more money than the market would otherwise support. The rest are being ground hard by skill gaps, what he calls the "hyper-meritocracy". One thing that has really struck me is that the top 25 hedge fund managers made more money than the CEOs of every Fortune 500 company combined. Now, from another book, consider that the average CEO in the 50's made about 25 times what his average employee made. By 1980 the CEO was making about 40-50 times what his average employee made. Now he makes 250-380 times what his average employee makes, depending on who's stats you use. So you have 500 CEOs making about 300 times what an average worker makes, yet they don't make as much as 25 hedge fund managers? That's got some pretty serious implications in the long run, and its certainly not a simple problem to solve.

I think we're on the border of "I don't know" and "almost hicks". Sounds about right. The further south you go in Indiana, the more hicks you find.

I tried Pimsleur with Arabic and it was terrible. Rosetta gave me a pretty good start on Arabic, though, enough that I wasn't totally lost when native speakers started helping me along. I've got a basic level of Spanish, I just need to build on it. My verb tenses are terrible, for example, and my vocabulary needs to expand. Thanks for the links, Palle, I'll check them out.

I had a roommate who taught himself Japanese that way. Or at least he thought he did... My wife watched Friends subtitled to help her with her English. I just want something I can use on my work computer to expand my basic Spanish.

Without boot legging or illegal downloads, what's the cheapest place to get a copy of the Spanish version of the Rosetta Stone program?

Today I want to talk about a boring but important topic, range safety equipment. I realized I probably should have lead with this, but its so ingrained in me now that I really don't think of it any more than I think of telling people to buy ammunition before going to the range. This is a failing on my part, as this is very important and I shouldn't take it for granted that people know. 1) Ear protection. Your ears can "blink" (seriously, Google it) and a few gunshots won't damage your hearing long term. However their "blinking" mechanism gets tired pretty rapidly, and then repeated exposure to loud noises can start to bend the little hairs inside your ear that you use to hear with. They don't repair themselves. Hearing loss is permanent. WEAR QUALITY HEARING PROTECTION. Basic muffs can be had for under $10. Throw some of those foam inserts into you ear, put a set of $10 muffs on over them, you're good to go. If you're going to be spending a lot of time at the range, want to be able to talk to friends at the range without doffing your muffs, are taking classes where you need to hear the instructor, or are using a shot timer and need to hear the beep, then its time to step up to electronic muffs. E-muffs will automatically shield you from harmful sound levels but will still let you hear normal sound levels, such as conversation. You can adjust how loudly you hear the conversation, etc. These are a great basic pair of electronic muffs: http://www.amazon.com/Howard-Leight-R-01526-Electronic-Earmuff/dp/B001T7QJ9O More expensive versions will have better stereo hearing, better amplification, etc. That's great if you want them for hunting. For range use, mostly irrelevant. For hunting use, you want more realistic amplification so that your own footsteps in the leaves don't sound as loud as a squirrel jumping on a branch. 2) Eye protection Especially when shooting at close distances, fragments from the backstop, bullet, or target can fly back at you. A tiny sliver of lead hitting your t-shirt is no problem. The same sliver hitting your eye can ruin your day. Also, guns are machines and can malfunction. Fragments from a ruptured barrel or breaking slide can blind you. The odds are low, but the stakes are high. Wear your eye protection. I like these: http://www.amazon.com/Pyramex-Unlimited-Shooting-Eyewear-Anti-Fog/dp/B000LVJ2TS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379176134&sr=8-1&keywords=duck+dynasty+shooting+glasses They don't fog up very easily, the case lets them be put in your range bag without getting all scratched up, and it the bag doubles as a lens cloth for cleaning. They also adjust easily to fit with ear muffs, a plus over regular sunglasses. The different color shades are nice to have for different lighting levels. If you have eye protection that starts to fog up, use a motorcycle helmet visor treatment on them, such as Fog-X, to restore anti-fog ability. Also, the basics of range safety: 1) Muzzle is always down range, if you slip and fall that's ok but keep your gun barrel pointed down range as best you can while falling and then when standing back up. 2) Finger off the trigger until ready to shoot. 3) Semi-auto handguns CAN fire by simply closing the slide. Its a rare malfunction, but it can happen. Use a sand barrel or at very least point it at the ground or down range when closing the slide. Again, its not the odds as much as the stakes. 4) Follow all range instructor's commands immediately. 5) Everyone is a safety officer. If you see someone down range or something else unsafe, call a cease fire. 6) If shooting with others on a line, realize that you may occasionally get pelted with hot brass. It sucks. Don't dance around like an angry chicken, holster your gun or safety set it down, then get the brass off of you. and of course, the 4 general rules of firearms safety All guns are always loaded. Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy. Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target. Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.

The shoulder holster? It's now my "bump in the night" rig. I keep it slung over my headboard with two spare magazines and a flashlight. That way I can just sling it on and have what I need. I've never gotten comfortable enough with it to wear it on duty, its just slower than a good belt holster. Hickok45 is one of the more interesting guys to watch, and he definitely has some good info.

Right? There Greatest Hits album is well worth the $10: http://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Hits-Explicit/dp/B001NZG8BG/ref=ntt_mus_dp_dpd_1 Fucken Awesome is always the first track on my workout play list.

I surprised my wife with a photo album with 80 photos of us, in as close to chronological order as I could manage, since we met. The first picture is of her working in her pharmacy, the last from a recent trip to an amusement park. I then surprised her with lunch at a Turkish restaurant. We'd never been, but I'd looked it up online and it got great reviews, and it was very nice. I had to go to work afterward, so no champagne or the like, but we'll do something like that on my days off. She got me a radio for the garage, which is where I sit when I'm reloading bullets. I'd mentioned getting one awhile back and then promptly forgot about it, but she didn't.

I ran across Spiderbait a few years back completely by accident. I was looking for "Black Betty" and realized their version kicked the shit out of Ram Jam's version. Spiderbait's drummer doesn't play the drums as much as he assaults them. We're all here, drinking beer Drinking beer without a care Drinking beeeeer...without a care

My point very much was that MLP is not over sexualized. Hell, I went and watched an episode just to see for myself. Its as sexed up as the Smurfs or Fraggle Rock, as in 0%. The fact that a certain subset of fans makes porn out of it doesn't make everyone who likes it a deviant, and CERTAINLY doesn't mean the official show is over sexualized. Welcome to the Internet, people make porn out of everything. Hell, I'm going to google Cars porn right now. They are freaking cars, and I bet there's porn out there. Ok, NSA, if you ever wanted a Google search to blackmail me with, here it is. Ok, wow, don't do that. Googling 'cars porn' reveals a picture of a dude with his dick in a tail pipe. Not a drawing, a real photo. Changing it to 'disney cars porn' does in fact reveal "fan art" that is porn. Which is why I asked, which is sexualized, Datte's nose art drawing or the "official" cheetara pick you posted. Why this incredibly wrought conversation about a totally asexual cartoon that's fetishized by some at the expense of its other fans? Now, let's all forget that I googled Cars porn and not put this in the out of context thread. Dicks.