Virdea

It was on the end of a line of AK47s.  The pawn shop dealt in guns that it sold to the local gangs - mostly to the girlfriends of gang members since the actual gangers could not buy guns.  The Model 8 was from an estate sale - the dealer picked it up as part of the sale and could not unload it.  He tried to even get the gangers to take it as part of his 3-1 sales deal - buy three AKs and get the Model 8 at 100 bucks.  
 
I saw it with a 325 price tag.  I had to get some power tools and offered him 25 bucks for the rifle.  Sold.  I ran the serial on NCIC and confirmed I was its second owner, and that it was not stolen.
 
To this day I chuckle over those chrome plated and pink AK47s with 50 rd mags and 100 rd drums with price tags at 2 grand each, and I walked out with a piece of history for the cost of a Mcdonalds meal. 
 
Yakima WA, you have to love it.

It was on the end of a line of AK47s.  The pawn shop dealt in guns that it sold to the local gangs - mostly to the girlfriends of gang members since the actual gangers could not buy guns.  The Model 8 was from an estate sale - the dealer picked it up as part of the sale and could not unload it.  He tried to even get the gangers to take it as part of his 3-1 sales deal - buy three AKs and get the Model 8 at 100 bucks.  
 
I saw it with a 325 price tag.  I had to get some power tools and offered him 25 bucks for the rifle.  Sold.  I ran the serial on NCIC and confirmed I was its second owner, and that it was not stolen.
 
To this day I chuckle over those chrome plated and pink AK47s with 50 rd mags and 100 rd drums with price tags at 2 grand each, and I walked out with a piece of history for the cost of a Mcdonalds meal. 
 
Yakima WA, you have to love it.

It was on the end of a line of AK47s.  The pawn shop dealt in guns that it sold to the local gangs - mostly to the girlfriends of gang members since the actual gangers could not buy guns.  The Model 8 was from an estate sale - the dealer picked it up as part of the sale and could not unload it.  He tried to even get the gangers to take it as part of his 3-1 sales deal - buy three AKs and get the Model 8 at 100 bucks.  
 
I saw it with a 325 price tag.  I had to get some power tools and offered him 25 bucks for the rifle.  Sold.  I ran the serial on NCIC and confirmed I was its second owner, and that it was not stolen.
 
To this day I chuckle over those chrome plated and pink AK47s with 50 rd mags and 100 rd drums with price tags at 2 grand each, and I walked out with a piece of history for the cost of a Mcdonalds meal. 
 
Yakima WA, you have to love it.

Saruman is dead.
 
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/2015/06/11/christopher-lee-known-for-roles-from-count-dracula-to-saruman-dies.html
 
He worked with SOE in WWII, and my favorite Christopher Lee moment was when Peter Jackson was taking to him m and trying to describe how he should react  to someone dying from a sword,he was like. "I know what someone having their throat cut sounds like."  On his Service in WWII : "I was attached to the SAS from time to time but we are forbidden – former, present, or future – to discuss any specific operations. Let's just say I was in Special Forces and leave it at that. People can read in to that what they like."
 
 
Truly a great character actor, and a great character in his own right.
 
 
 

Here is the anecdote in question.  The director and cast interviews on the LOTR DVDs mention it as well.
 
I recall another film cast interview that mentions Lee telling vague campfire stories about derring-do in the desert, and the actor being interviewed figured it was just an old man telling tales.  Up until it came to a part in the film where they had to throw some knives for a scene, that is, and it turned out that Christopher Lee was really, really good at throwing knives.

Her name is George, and she was my first rifle that was not military or a 22.  My grandfather carried and used a model 8.

When you consider that Hitler was simply a motivational speaker, one of those envision-what-you-dream-and-make-it-true types, it all begins to make a little more sense. That and Adolf was damn lucky at avoiding death throughout most of his life.
 
But then motivational speakers have always creeped me out. And this goes back to my school days when they'd march the entire student body into the gym or auditorium to listen to some stranger talk to us about whatever idiotic fad that was the hot button social topic at the time.

Brick Fight,
 
In my study of different cultures I start with food and only study how they kill each other at the end.  This subject is fascinating to me.  My family is farmers and the how and why is always fascinating.
 
Many (I say many, but I mean more than before) restaurants have started to make deals with farms.  The farms grow what the restaurants want.  The restaurants pay for the product.  With the volatility of restaurants I am interested in how local regulation can support farmers in regional areas.  I used to hitch hike from the Texas border to Chiapas every year during my vacation, when I had money and was young and stupid, and many farmers in Mexico set up roadside stands from which they sold produce from the farmers and cooked it up for truckers and the occasional gringo idiot like me.
 
By the way, if your truck were within 50 miles of any state I work in now I would visit it and eat one of each thing on your menu.  

I cook for a living which is why I don't have the impressive militaria/machine knowledge you folks have. I've worked as chef and cook for several different types of kitchens, and although it can be pretty hot, long, and thankless work, I get off a little on being able to create something the way I do. I currently run a food truck with my friend, and we make Mexican food in as an authentic way as we can. After years of the faux-French cooking prevalent in American kitchens, it's been fun, yet difficult to start doing things like soaking & grinding corn for tortillas/tamales, or making our own cheese and sour cream from scratch. Current project is to make our own goat chevre from goat milk.
 
I've also found myself tearing down preconceptions in my mind of what seems to be commonly-held "knowledge" in the culinary world. The big one lately has been produce prices. While it's convenient and supposedly cheaper to have a food proprieter deliver produce for you on a reliable schedule, we've been having an easy time of getting produce from the market where we work. Most people look at the retail prices of farmers' market prices here and wonder how we can buy the stuff and get away with it. After dealing the farmers long enough, we found that whatever they can't sell at a market has to go for wholesale at auctions later. Their product goes away for some pretty medeival prices (especially for the Amish, who can't easily travel to and from the auctions). So, we just started seeing what they'd like to get rid of, and offering more than what they'd get (and less than retail) for some cases. As a result, farmers have become friendly and open to selling us large amounts of fantastic seasonal produce for very agreeable prices.
 
So is anyone curious about cooking/the food industry or have anything they want to discuss? If anyone's interested, I'll keep up on our little science experiments and trips. I've also had plans for a food blog where I want to teach people how to cook. Not like "here's some recipes." I want to teach someone how to efficiently feed themselves and others the way some cook making 200 perfect meals a night would.

Just put down for this baguette rifle:
 

Since we are packing for Alaska. Here is Cricket and Charlie. His and her matching revolvers...
 

 
The Model 629 .44 Magnum is "Charlie" my wife's Alaska gun which she got when the four-legged (and two-legged) vermin up on the Last Frontier got too much.
 
The Ruger SP101 .357 Magnum is "Cricket" and my EDC gun. Up in Alaska, the philosophy is that it is pretty much a noise-maker to get bears to move along. As such I usually load two or three rounds of .38 Special as a more affordable option. 
 
My wife anthropomorphizes everything.

What is ITAR?
International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) is a set of U.S. government regulations that control the export and import of defense-related articles and services on the U.S. Munition List (USML).[1] These regulations implement the provisions of the Arms Export Control Act, and are described in Title 22 (Foreign Relations), Chapter I (Department of State), Subchapter M of the Code of Federal Regulations. The Department of State interprets and enforces ITAR. Its goal is to safeguard U.S. national security and further U.S. foreign policy objectives.
 
Is this a Democrat thing?
No.  It was passed in 1976 and supported by congress since then.  
 
This recent furor is because Obama is trying to get rid of guns?
No, the ITAR changes listed in the Federal register are mostly being done by technocrats who hold positions on civil service contracts that prevent politicization of their jobs.  That is why they are put into the Federal Register.  Technocrats have to tell everyone when they monkey with a reg so people have time to react.
 
Could This Affect Bloggers?
Absolutely, if they are exporters.  An exporter is someone who sells a product to a foreign entity for money.  A blogger who knowingly sells information, even openly available information, to a nation or NGO on a watch list can be fined or charged for violating ITAR.  This does not mean that they have to stop foreign nationals from visiting their blogs and earning them advertising dollars.  It means that if they get a paycheck for their writing for a foreign source they need to do due diligence to find out what the money is for and who is giving them the money.  So, for example, if a blogger is hired by China to write an article on the capabilities of US ships, they can be fined or jailed for this.  The big ones that are of concerns is ISIS, Boko Harum, the Taliban, and the like.
 
Do You Have an Example?
Yes.  ISIS contacts a blogger and asks for an article on how to execute soldiers wearing standard US helmet without removing them from their heads.  They offer the blogger $10,000 for the service.  The blogger complies and gives them the article and gets the money.  They have now violated ITAR.
 
What About the First Amendment?
Justices for 200 years have provided less freedom to commercial speech than political, so this speech, as it is commercial, faces stiffer regulations.
 
If the blogger writes an article on how to execute US soldiers and posts on their own website?
They need to talk to a lawyer, but they have not exported the product, as they received no money, and they were not contracted by a foreign power for the information.  Distasteful information is covered by the First Amendment.  
 
What changes actually happened?
The changes to ITAR are mostly on the subject of collation of open information. It is possible under the old regulations that a person who merely collated public information as a service for ISIS could be innocent as they were not providing new information.
 
Why then is the NRA concerned?
We are coming into a presidential season and the NRA's top candidates are already in trouble in the polls.  The NRA is a massively expensive organization to run with hundreds of people paid six figures or more, and a larger member base of lifetime members.  The only way to raise the HUGE money needed to keep the current political influence is to rouse the party base on trivial or non-existence issues.  This also confirms to Washington NRA power.  If the NRA can create buzz around a lie, then it is more powerful because it could bring down politicians who do not follow their fiat for any reason, even one without a factual basis.

This is not Sturgeon demanding this of us, but a request.  Out of respect for Sturgeon we should remember it is his income and this is his forum.

This is my Mod8 - serial number for 1907, pistol grips.  Strippers are not original but work in this gun.

As tempting as joining the MAS cult on the forum sounds.
 

 
Something along the lines of this little number is still really high priority as far as older guns go.
 
potential heresy note, did they ever make a wooden pistol grip for the actual grip and not just the front foregrip? adding that to the above would make it perfect for me.

Not gonna lie, since were all posting "my fantasy guns" here, I may aswell join in.
 
one of my dumb ideas for a PDW is based on an updated Spectre M4 (I've actually got to try one on full auto at an MG shoot, really like them actually) with a slightly longer 155mm barrel, the choice being partially influenced by the closed bolt design and the 50 round casket magazine feed system for it, and chambered for a 6x24mm cartridge, which is basically the the 6.5x25mm CBJ-MS dimension wise with a shorter neck, and necked down to .243 caliber with a conventional bullet, as I can't imagine the tungsten dart rounds for the CBJ being cheap to use in the long run.
 
Bullet weight/style would be a tool steel cored 2g projectile encased in hard cast lead/antimony body and a nickel/copper alloy jacket, chamber pressure would be around 60,000 psi.
 
some may ask "hey, why not just use a P90 or QCW-05?" Because fuck it, that's why.
 
I think it might be a decent weapon for second line troops and vehicle crews, certain special ops missions, and police work.
 
P.S. .20-.24 caliber bullits best bullits, fite me irl.

By the way, I just got off the phone with a friend and gun zealot who is "pretty high up."
 
This is part of a money donation effort on the part of two presidential contenders - there are several major asks coming up, and they need this to bring the blogoshpere to a rile to keep money coming into some campaigns who have hit the rocks recently.  Like the 9 billion rounds of hollow point asks, this will be around for a while as various political groups squeeze money out of the common joe for this election cycle.
 
There are something like 17 ITAR changes to USC and all of them are benign.  The worst of them will affect any of us who are writers and are currently being paid by Al Qaeda, ISIS, or other terror organizations.  You cannot, now at least, write a pamphlet for Al Qaeda with public domain information if in doing so you create a markedly different product.  I am not sure how many people on the gun forum are paid by foreign terror organizations, but I suspect the number is an integer smaller than 1.  
 
Another category of change is what state department writers can write about.  

Brick Fight,
 
Any academic is familiar with public domain research rules.  The public notice says that the Department of State will be reviewing its process for releasing information, not that it will be arresting people for discussing public-released information.   This is the sort of nonsense the NRA plies to us lifetime members on a regular basis to get us to donate another thousand so the president can buy another mansion.  
 
File this along with the warnings about the post office buying hollow points and Obama's secret agenda to take guns.  The following is important to remember:
 
1. The state department lacks any authority to regulate free speech inside of the United States, and can only affect you if you publish a very narrow band of classified information.  AND - the most that agencies like State or the FBI will do, even if you are running around spilling secrets, is usually give you a phone call (leaving you to wonder how they got your cell phone).  That happened to me before and it was not a cause of paranoia, but of great glee.  I identified a North Korean transport of arms one time from watching a hobby website that posts pictures of the shipping industry, and spent ten minutes explaining how I did it.  And the guy was really bored, like he has to ask me this stuff.
 
2. Obama is the democratic president who least cares about guns in the past 50 years.  He scored a 0 in the Brady rankings.  He will make some waves once in a while to get donations, but to someone scientifically minded I would worry not one bit that Obama is running wild taking guns.
 
3. I am sad to say since you all know him, but Mr. Johnson's response is a bit - weird.  

Brick Fight,
 
Any academic is familiar with public domain research rules.  The public notice says that the Department of State will be reviewing its process for releasing information, not that it will be arresting people for discussing public-released information.   This is the sort of nonsense the NRA plies to us lifetime members on a regular basis to get us to donate another thousand so the president can buy another mansion.  
 
File this along with the warnings about the post office buying hollow points and Obama's secret agenda to take guns.  The following is important to remember:
 
1. The state department lacks any authority to regulate free speech inside of the United States, and can only affect you if you publish a very narrow band of classified information.  AND - the most that agencies like State or the FBI will do, even if you are running around spilling secrets, is usually give you a phone call (leaving you to wonder how they got your cell phone).  That happened to me before and it was not a cause of paranoia, but of great glee.  I identified a North Korean transport of arms one time from watching a hobby website that posts pictures of the shipping industry, and spent ten minutes explaining how I did it.  And the guy was really bored, like he has to ask me this stuff.
 
2. Obama is the democratic president who least cares about guns in the past 50 years.  He scored a 0 in the Brady rankings.  He will make some waves once in a while to get donations, but to someone scientifically minded I would worry not one bit that Obama is running wild taking guns.
 
3. I am sad to say since you all know him, but Mr. Johnson's response is a bit - weird.  

Brick Fight,
 
Any academic is familiar with public domain research rules.  The public notice says that the Department of State will be reviewing its process for releasing information, not that it will be arresting people for discussing public-released information.   This is the sort of nonsense the NRA plies to us lifetime members on a regular basis to get us to donate another thousand so the president can buy another mansion.  
 
File this along with the warnings about the post office buying hollow points and Obama's secret agenda to take guns.  The following is important to remember:
 
1. The state department lacks any authority to regulate free speech inside of the United States, and can only affect you if you publish a very narrow band of classified information.  AND - the most that agencies like State or the FBI will do, even if you are running around spilling secrets, is usually give you a phone call (leaving you to wonder how they got your cell phone).  That happened to me before and it was not a cause of paranoia, but of great glee.  I identified a North Korean transport of arms one time from watching a hobby website that posts pictures of the shipping industry, and spent ten minutes explaining how I did it.  And the guy was really bored, like he has to ask me this stuff.
 
2. Obama is the democratic president who least cares about guns in the past 50 years.  He scored a 0 in the Brady rankings.  He will make some waves once in a while to get donations, but to someone scientifically minded I would worry not one bit that Obama is running wild taking guns.
 
3. I am sad to say since you all know him, but Mr. Johnson's response is a bit - weird.  

This is a really good argument you're making. The caliber creep crowd want to maximize the ability of the rifle to strike at intermediate ranges. If you accept their hypothesis that small caliber rounds are ineffective, than any level of effectiveness gives a good price/performance ratio in that range bracket because the increase in capability is roughly infinite. There's just one catch. The soldier being a man with a rifle went out of fashion at about the same time as the fife and drums. The soldier is a small system that uses weight carrying capacity to bring a variety of tools to kill the enemy at a variety of ranges.
 
The constraining resource is not the allotment of a rifle, it is the ability to carry the weight of infantry equipment. The most weight-efficient way to add capability is the best (unless it involves something crazy enough to make something else, like cost or bulk, the constraint). The other option is rejiggering the relative position of the components of the squad if the individual soldier needs a capability they can't individually carry.
 
I've also got a comedy idea of mechanized infantry spotting for an autoloading mortar on their vehicle.

Let me state why I am against 6.8 as it is different than anyone else' reason.  
 
As a person who studies several forms of technology I would introduce a theory that all technology performs, from a macro point of view, in the same manner, and by watching historical trends one can predict where you are on a technology adoption or change curve, and that allows you to invest time and money on looking for changes.  Two trends always show up - the trend of convergence, where a new technology sucks in all other technologies until it dominates the world, and that of shift, where a technology hits up against a wall and the only way to improve is to seek a new breakthrough outside of the dominant paradigm.
 
The last convergence for technology was 1886 when smokeless powder introduced new chemical paradigms into ground warfare.  Other technologies are peripheral - like digital and electronic, but still important.  However for guns, the convergence is long past, and now we enter shift. The universal weapon idea was the dream of convergence and happened twice - the musket (300 year dominance) and the advanced breach loader (only fifty years).  
 
Now we have entered the far ends of the period of shift where hundreds of specialized designs vie for king, and where minor corrections to course are constantly made seeking out changes that barely can be measured.  My objection to 6.8mm comes from this.  Sure, maybe it has a chubb advantage, and if we measure the erections of gun experts for the larger and longer throw weight of their tumescence we may determine that 6.8 gets a bigger boner factor than 5.56, but the 6.8 is merely a way of hiding from the fact that we are on the bottom of a new slope in technology, and it is very scary because we do not have the scope of the slow yet - we have no idea what is coming next.
 
I like the G11 because it is a test of paradigms that would answer the question "are traditional kinetics ready to go one more round."  I also like the idiotic 20mm thing the US tried out and the idea of plastic rounds, and metal storm.  It keeps someone working on the edge while the next paradigm develops.  The 6.8mm is an automatic looser for me just because it is a return to ideas we have already walked across, with the idea that the past was better than the future.  
 
In reality, I am a big proponent of adopting the 5.7 (and was a fan before it existed, since I am older than most of you, of the Spitfire) and fielding the PDW as a universal rifle.  BOPE has been working with this in their high threat environments and they love the 5.7.  My own experience with it was great, out to 200m a smart reflex sight generates great accuracy.  In combat the 5.7 can have a suppressing effect 250 meters further, which is all 5.56 does anyway.
 
So I would give units a little gun with that 200m envelope coverage.  That is inside danger close envelope where you won't get anyone shooting the big stuff anyway, and the entire modern job I believe of the hand-held kinetic is to fight in alleys and houses, or to clear the area 200m out.  I would design the sights to allow area fire to 600m, but this would be more to sustain suppression while the sniper or other assets find their cover.
 
Next, develop a universal thrower for each rifle that allows each soldier to toss 60mm mortar grenades out to 450m  These should be versatile (different models do different jobs), and include some with terminal guidance.  The GPMG stays with the team, as does the designated marksman, and this group is keyed to engage to this range or a little further.  
 
In Iraq and Afghanistan engagement outside the 450 mark is mostly done by heavies and artillery.   

FWIW the best  "grab it and go" rifle I ever used was an AK.  Barring that, it was a FAL.
Debate away, as presently the fulcrum of my "armory" is based on a MAS 49 with a modified Chatelleraut magazine...

Yeah, I designed such an animal to the best of my knowledge, here it is.

I don't know how my experience with ballistics measures up against that of others on this forum, but I have examined this problem deeply, and while I agree with the general thrust of your argument - that kinetic small arms are these days little more than PDWs - I disagree with the conclusion that therefore militaries should issue PDW rounds in lieu of rifle rounds. I will agree that the job of 5.56mm can most likely be done by a smaller round - an example I'd point to being the 4.6x36 HK/CETME - But the 5.7x28mm lacks a substantial amount of capability in penetration and lethality that 5.56mm possesses. Having said all this, the recognition of your central point that individual kinetic weapons are essentially personal defense assets should be incorporated into any future ammunition paradigm.
 
 
Good lord yes, what we have works very well. Anything beyond that is optimization, or the result of a paradigm shift (lightweight ammunition cases).
 
 
My readers don't know it yet, but the Light Rifle series is something of a set-up for a further screed on the evils of optimizing everything to the point where you have equipment that is unsuitable for battle.