Articles by Herschel Smith

BLUF: The results of the budget ammo are fairly impressive.

Southwest Airlines still wants their vaccine mandate.

Southwest Airlines Co. asked a federal court to reject a request from its pilots to temporarily block the carrier from carrying out federally mandated coronavirus vaccinations, saying such an order would put the company’s business, employees and customers at risk.

The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association is seeking to stop the airline from moving ahead with the Nov. 24 deadline for the shots until an existing a lawsuit it filed over alleged U.S. labor law violations is resolved. The union claims Southwest illegally changed work rules during the pandemic instead of negotiating them with pilots.

In related news, they’re trying to piss off the governor of Texas, the incoming CEO says they will cut flights next year if staffing falls short (and it will).

It’s true that if they lose a pilot in a heart attack due to blood clot in a vaccinated pilot (like Delta), the money woes will be much worse, especially if the plane crashes and hundreds of people perish.

Via WRSA, this thread at AR15.com is great.  Thanks to the guy who worked so hard putting this all together.

I got it all the first time around (make sure to study all of the graphs and read the discussion carefully).  If you’re unaccustomed to working with Newtonian physics, it may take you a time or two through it.

My complaint: He addresses only 55 grain bullets, and doesn’t seem to make much of barrel length.  I’d like to see this thread expanded to include 68, 75 and 77 grains.  A lot of guys are shooting heavier bullets now.  That affects velocity, and thus changes everything.

But that’s a minor complaint.  To be sure, I haven’t put together anything like this for readers, so I have no room to complain.  I’m sure he put an awful lot of work into this, so he doesn’t need complaints from the peanut gallery.

Mom-at-Arms has the news.  Gun Feed also covers.  North American Arms decided that they don’t care about you or your beliefs.

“I don’t believe the vaccines are safe”.  How much data, gathered over what period of time, will it take to put this false narrative to bed?

“I don’t believe the vaccines are effective”.  While there have been some, few instances of people contracting COVID after having been vaccinated, the effects they suffer are, almost without exception, an order of magnitude less severe than they would have been otherwise.

“I have already contracted the disease and so I already have some level of immunity and see no benefit from vaccination”.  Right on the first count, wrong on the second; you can be certain that your immunity will only be bolstered with a vaccination.

“I am afraid of suffering side effects from the vaccination”.   While some have reported this to be the case, there are stunningly few and the effects are modest/weak and very short-lived.

“My circumstance puts me at a heightened risk from being vaccinated”.  I don’t know what circumstance that is; it most certainly does not apply to those attempting to become pregnant, for example.

“I have a history of adverse allergic reactions”.  Maybe.  That alone has a taint of legitimacy.

“I claim a religious exemption”.  For the life of me, I can’t understand the basis of such a thing.  What religion would advocate against something that will protect your life and that of others?  Certainly none that I’ve ever heard of.  Go ask the Pope.

“I can’t afford it”.  Bullshit; it’s free.

“I don’t know where to find it”.  Are you living under a rock?

“I’m a freedom-loving American and I simply don’t want to”.  Ahhh, here we go.  This is far and away the most frequent – and lamest – excuse.  Even Donald Trump, the poster-child for the selfish exercise of frequently nonsensical individual freedoms (“I’m not wearing a mask because I don’t want to”.) has been vaccinated and has encouraged other people to do so as well (NB he’s also previously contracted the disease, above).  As a member of a society, you have an obligation not to threaten the health and well-being of others, particularly when doing so comes at no risk or expense to you.

I’ll admit I enjoy no small measure of schadenfreude reading stories of those stubborn people who find themselves stricken and on death’s door, suffering from their earlier foolish decision not to get vaccinated.  I look at it almost as a Darwinian effect, helping cleanse our gene pool.  Excuse my lack of sympathy.  Too bad.  Completely avoidable.  Didn’t have to happen.

I will ask the pope nothing at all.  He’s an unbeliever and godless communist and has an adviser who is a Gaia worshiper and atheist.  Besides, I’ve written on this subject and if the author of this stupid and ill-informed missive took the time he could have studied the issue as well.

When a writer gets to the point that he’s telling people (he doesn’t even know) that he doesn’t care if they live or die, something has gone badly wrong.  It’s time to take a long break and stop writing.  Something is deeply disturbed and wrong in the soul.

He also doesn’t seem to be very well aware of the real data on adverse reactions (see also here, and here, and here).  It doesn’t really matter.  He’s just aping the crap he hears on CNN.

Either way, he’s jettisoned his following, defenestrated them, thrown them out the window.  He doesn’t care any more for whatever reason.  He tried to apologize, but it fails.

Good job, dummy.  You just destroyed your business.  Go find another job now.

I’ll file this one under gun control.

TTAG has what I consider a very good explanation on FFP versus SFP (although we’ve covered that before as well).  It’s worth lifting a bit out.

As you may have gathered, first focal plane scopes place the reticle in front of the magnification lens, resulting in a reticle that shrinks or grows as the magnification is adjusted. That means the reticle’s tic marks or gradations always cover the same minutes of angle or milliradians, regardless of the magnification level. The measurements of the reticle are accurate at any magnification.

So your holdovers are correct at any magnification.  That’s the upshot.

That can be really useful for rapid ranging or engagement at distances without dialing the magnification up or setting the turrets. While that might be of limited use in a more simplistic reticle, with a mil grid like the HorusVision Tremor or the Schmidt & Bender GR²ID reticles, there is little need to manipulate the turrets once the optic is zeroed.

The shooter can accomplish all adjustments using holds. But those holds would be dependent on magnification in a second focal plane scope. In contrast, the shooter can range, engage, and adjust at any magnification with a first focal plane. It makes engagement far quicker. That might be much more of a tactical consideration than for, say, competition or hunting. But it is still a valid consideration.

In many ways, this choice does depend on your budget and requirements. Many with a sniper background (including the author) still question the point of a second focal plane variable optic. Others argue that the reticle on a first focal plane optic gets too small at lower magnifications and too large at higher, obscuring the target.

So there are downsides too.

That’s extremely minimalist.  Too small for me.  I’ve outlined what I usually carry into the bush before: rubberized poncho, redundant means of fire start, light, knife, poncho, cordage, water, emergency food, and large bore handgun.  Including a container to boil water is smart.

Notice that when he mentions bank line, he shows you twisted line.  There are two types of bank line – twisted and braided.  Decide for yourself which one you want.

For those of you who are custom gun makers and/or reloaders.

Armed America News.

by Anonymous:

Guns.com, one of the industry’s top websites for gun-related news, reviews, and a not-too-new firearm and accessory marketplace, has recently implemented a Covid-19 vaccine mandate for all employees, including remote workers. While the move has been seen as forward-thinking by some, others aren’t so convinced that it was such a smart move.

The company announced their decision the last day of September in a company-wide email that was sent out less than an hour before close-of-day. The company, which just celebrated its 10-year anniversary, is mandating that all employees provide proof of Covid-19 vaccination before November 15. Without it, employment with Guns.com will be terminated as of that date.

While two exceptions are provided — or rather applications for exemption — some employees have little faith in them. The medical exemption, for example, provides a list of conditions which are not considered valid reasons for opting out of the Covid vaccine. This includes any autoimmune disorder. Just to reiterate, even if you are immune compromised, Guns.com still requires you to get the jab. And then there’s a religious exemption, which has historically been a “can’t touch this” kind of document. The Guns.com religious exemption wants employees to identify and explain their sincerely held religious beliefs which preclude the vaccine, in addition to indicating whether you have asked for such an exemption from previous employers, the outcome of that exemption, and the company with which the religious exemption was submitted. They also require you to explain “whether you are opposed to all vaccines, and if not, the religious basis on which you object to the Covid-19 vaccine in particular (as opposed to other vaccines).”

We should always be careful with anonymous sources, but in this case an inquiry was made to Mr. Greg Minkler who responded and stated “no comment.”  If it wasn’t true, it would have been easy enough to deny it and renounce such a mandate.

This is an awful look for Guns.com.

I’ll wait, but until I learn otherwise, I’ll never link Guns.com again, and won’t even read them.

If this is true, they are dead to me.

At Outdoor Life.

They cover Magpul, Caldwell, Javelin, Warne and Harris.

I don’t like the Magpul, and frankly I’m not sure I really like any of them.

I do like the Accu-Tac bipod, but of course it’s more expensive.  There’s no accounting for taste, except that mine tend towards the more expensive for whatever reason.

Do readers have suggestions on bipods they like, and why?

Source.

According to comments on this post, Intel approached this in a fairly unique and smart way.

Intel offered a cash incentive to inform the company of vaccination status.  Apparently, they became so concerned at that point (presumably based on feedback) that the CEO made the declaration you see above.  You can’t quickly replace the sort of electrical engineers and programmers Intel has under their employ.

Good for them.