Articles by Herschel Smith

What a great machine – of interest to engineers everywhere.  It’s too bad the controllers swept it up into the umbrella of the NFA and GCA.

Epoch Times.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) likely overstepped its authority when it told Americans to “stop” using ivermectin against COVID-19, a federal court ruled on Sept. 1.

“FDA can inform, but it has identified no authority allowing it to recommend consumers ‘stop’ taking medicine,”  U.S. Circuit Judge Don Willett wrote in the ruling.

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FDA never points to any authority that allows it to issue recommendations or give medical advice,” Judge Willett wrote.

“Rather, FDA argues that some posts included a hyperlink that leads to the update. The update, in turn, directs consumers to “[t]alk to your health care provider.” But not all of the social-media posts included such a link. And even for those posts that did include a link, the posts themselves offer advice, not mere information.”

The update itself is problematic because of its title, “Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19,” the judge said. Even though it later says that people can take ivermectin if prescribed by a health care provider, “the trailing qualifier does not lessen the opening instruction’s imperative character,” he said.

And it didn’t stop medical boards in the states from revoking the license for doctors who went against Fauci, the FDA and the CDC.

I really like judge Don Willett.  I’ve said that before.  He should be on the supreme court rather than the two ladies (here I’m thinking of Barrett and Roberts).

This is a followup to the post on How to Assemble an AR-15 Lower.  I told you I’d link it when they came out in print with it.

Recoil: How To Build An AR-15 Upper.

You can’t just throw your upper in the vise without damaging it. There are a few ways to skin this cat, but I recommend a reaction rod. Geissele makes a good one, as does Wheeler. I use the Real Avid one and have done so for years. These are nice because you have options for mounting and turning the action as you work. If you want something cheaper, a vise block that clamps around the action is only $20 normally and works well. It does limit you and makes assembly a little harder, but it’s cheap.

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Technically speaking, the only correct lube is AeroShell 33MS. That said, I use White Lithium grease. You NEED to use grease on the threads for the barrel nut and muzzle device, or you risk ruining them. When selecting a grease, the major thing you need to avoid is a grease with graphite or copper in it. AeroShell 33MS is the mil-spec grease, and I would assume it’s the mil-spec grease for a reason, but I honestly don’t know what that reason is.

I’ve looked, I’ve asked, and no one has been able to tell me why it is the mil-spec other than that it doesn’t have graphite or copper in it. Personally, white lithium is a lot more universal, and buying a tube of that makes more sense to me. I started using white lithium based on the advice of a major brand, and I’ve never had an issue, even if it isn’t “mil-spec.”

He talks about do’s and don’ts, torquing specifications, and other tools you will need.

Frankly, I don’t know how much I’d trust any tool except Magpul.  Also, he doesn’t say much about parts (in terms of recommending specific brands).  I won’t ever replace a BCG in any of my guns without it being a BAD (Battle Arms Development) or a charging handle without it being a Radian Raptor.

After you are the one who orchestrated the nationwide shutdown, kept kids home from school, and marched that communist Fauci in front of the TV cameras for a year and failed to reign in the NIH and CDC.

And on top of that took the credit for rolling out an untested shot that causes blood clots and destroys the immune system. Yeah, you’ve got the nerve.

Big bear fight.

Alligator versus Python.  I don’t like either one of them.

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A post shared by Dev Shrestha (@d_shrestha10)

An Alaskan island of feral cattle.

Source.

D.C. will pay $5.1 million as part of a class-action settlement with gun owners who were arrested under laws that have since been found to violate the Second Amendment, according to the settlement agreement.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth gave preliminary approval to the settlement agreement on Monday following years of litigation. Lamberth had previously ruled in September 2021 that D.C. arrested, jailed, prosecuted and seized guns from six people “based on an unconstitutional set of laws” and violated their Second Amendment rights.

The laws — a ban on carrying handguns outside the home and others that effectively banned nonresidents from carrying guns at all in D.C. — have since been struck down in federal court. They were part of a “gun control regime that completely banned carrying handguns in public,” Lamberth wrote in the 2021 ruling.

Now, D.C. will pay a total of $300,000 to the six plaintiffs and $1.9 million in attorneys fees, with the majority of the rest of the money set aside for more than 3,000 people estimated to qualify for the class-action.

The D.C. attorney general’s office declined to comment. Attorneys for the six gun owners did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The settlement agreement follows litigation in several major federal court cases over the last 15 years that have led judges to strike down highly restrictive D.C. gun laws, slowly leading to more legal gun ownership in a city where illegal weapons have dominated.

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A succession of court rulings chipped away at other restrictive D.C. laws. In 2014, a federal judge in Palmer v. District of Columbia struck down D.C.’s total ban on carrying handguns in public and enjoined the District from banning nonresidents from legally registering firearms. And in 2017, a federal judge invalidated D.C.’s requirement that people show “good reason” to obtain a concealed-carry permit — significantly opening the door to more legal guns.

In this case, the six plaintiffs — including four non-D.C. residents — were arrested between 2012 and 2014 on gun-related charges. They filed a lawsuit in 2015.

Those arrested include the lead plaintiff, Maggie Smith, a nurse from North Carolina who was pulled over by D.C. police for a routine traffic stop in June 2014, according to court documents. Smith, who had no criminal record, informed officers her car contained a pistol that was licensed in her home state — for which police promptly arrested her, seizing her gun and taking her to jail, where she stayed overnight.

Ah, that “routine traffic stop” that so very often is just a pretext for more invasive actions by the Stasi, and are never really routine.

Well good.  I hope this hits them good and hard.  Unfortunately this will all be paid by the taxpayers, and the best option would be to shut down city council and all gun registration employees and schemes.  Maybe that would save some money.  And make things more peaceable in D.C.

The only thing I’ll say is that I’ve seen M193 perform an awful lot better than that.  Something was wrong with that test and I don’t think it’s indicative of what .223/5.56 can do.

Nevada.

A trending TikTok video uploaded by the shows a Jack in the Box drive-thru worker who open carries—even at work.

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The 26-second clip with more than 814,000 views unfolds with a brief yet potent exchange. It begins with a question, “Is that the 45 or 9?” She responds that it is the latter, and explains why it’s necessary as she provides his Jack in the Box order: “Yeah, it gets crazy at night.”

@djspindizzy what neighborhood would you find this fast food spot at? #opencarry #fastfood #secondammendment ♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys – Kevin MacLeod & Kevin The Monkey

Good for that manager. That employee is behaving just like the American founders did when they toted rifles on their way to school.

Paul Harrell gives us a really interesting video on ammo storage.  What he finds is that if the ammo works, it seems to work well.  Unfortunately, he had some failures to fire in the batch he left in his car for a year.  He suspects (and I suspect too) that further exposure to high temperature and humidity would have further degraded the ammunition performance.

I spent just a little time to locate U.S. Army temperature and humidity storage specifications for ammunition, and while I found a bit of information, I ran out of time on that research project.  I suspect there is much more than what I found.

I did manage to locate an American Rifleman Q&A.

Q: I live in rural upstate New York, and summer temperatures reach in excess of 90° F—with car and attic temperatures exceeding triple digits. Is there a known “maximum safe temperature” for the storage of ammunition? What would be the ideal conditions to store ammunition?

A: Nitrocellulose, the primary ingredient in smokeless powder, is hygroscopic, which means it absorbs water from the air that can affect both shelf life and burn rate. Coatings and stabilizers, such as methyl and ethyl centralite, are added to prevent this. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of these compounds is reduced as the temperature rises.

The standard advice is to store ammunition in a “cool, dry place.” Manufacturers try to store powders at 70° F +/- 5 degrees. For handloaders, the best advice is to store powder in a cool basement or an interior room that is of “comfortable” temperature.

The only thing I can think of to say is if you live in New York, get out.