Zero verification at deer-camp

Today was deer-camp's designated "verify your zero" day.

12 mph wind from left-to-right.

Targets were 0.9" diameter "dots" with the colored region being 0.8".

Range was 100 yards and shooting from a bench.

First shooter

1.6", three shot group. Centered about 2" high at 100 yards. The shooter elected to call it good.

Due to the small size of the dot, he was aiming "sun over the yard-arm and to the left of the mast" because the thickness of the cross-hairs of the reticle completely covered the dot. 

Second shooter

 1.5" group. Dead-nuts or slightly high for elevation (remember, the sun/yard-arm/mast has the center of the aimpoint about an an inch below and to the right of the center of the dot) and impact about an inch to the right of the real point-of-aim.

That shooter elected to not adjust his scope.

My turn

I was curious to see how I would do with the 5.56mm NATO, bolt-action carbine that I might use during antlerless season. I speculated that I would print a 2" group centered about 2" above the circle.

Political BS and Kettlebells

I don't have a lot of gas in the tank with regard to things to blog about.

After two years of abandoning core, conservative principles in the Senate and Executive Branch, Republicans are baffled by the shellacking they took in the mid-term elections. I don't want to play the blame-game. It was a team-failure although the House was able to move the ball down the mid-field...the special teams refused to punch it into the end-zone.

The stock markets woke-up to the probable effects of Democrats' plans to goose the economy by printing debt (which they conflate with money). The crowd now sees inflation on the horizon. The Democrats announced all through the election cycle that they are going to freeze permitting of AI data centers and speculation in that sector is the only thing holding up "the market". Kick down the tent-poles and the tent collapses.

The limousine liberals are about to watch their 401-k and 457-b balances shit-the-bed. Frankly, it was going to happen anyway. It just needed a proximal cause to prick the balloon.

Coffee is good.
Aspirin is a miracle.
Ibuprofen is the breakfast of champions.
Acetaminophen is hard to pronounce.
People are crazy. 
God is Great, and so is being on the green-side-of-the-sod.

A bag of concrete costs about $5

I can fit about 100 pounds of concrete into a retired, 5 gallon gas jug. I would flip it upside-down and cut a hole in the bottom so I can pour the mixed concrete into it and have it fill the blow-molded handle with concrete.

 

I need two of them for bilateral Farmer's Carries

I need to fiddle around with the ones at the gym for a couple of weeks to figure out what my "baseline" weight needs to be. At this instant in time, it looks like it will be something north of 70 pounds.

The picture in my head is that I can carry them up-and-down the length of my driveway.

The only real downside to making kettlebells out of concrete is that they won't clang when I walk. 

Schrödinger's box of screws

I have a box of screws that I can only find when I am not looking for it. 

Sometimes it is on the fifth shelf on the shelving in front of where Mrs ERJ parks her minivan. I will need the screws later today but I don't need them RIGHT NOW. So this is a good time to see if they popped out of whatever parallel universe they often inhabit. 

Sighting-in a Savage Rascal .22LR with iron sights

The rear sight of the Rascal is adjustable for up/down and the front sight is dove-tailed for left/right.

The rear sight pivots round the front screw and you adjust the sight up/down and tighten the rear screw to secure it.

I was using Armscor .22LR ammo and shooting from the prone position. 

It is worth your time to improvise some shims. This is not something you can eyeball. I used 3 x 5" index cards and was able to move the point-of-impact up-or-down in incremental jumps.

It took 14 3 x 5" cards and one 3 x 5" insert made from copy paper to get a reasonable (but not perfect) zero at 20 paces. That measured out to 0.108" thick.

I am still 3/8" high at 20 yards but the sight is fussy and I am not sure that I am going to get much closer than that. I cannot imagine that a woodchuck or rabbit will notice that 3/8" difference at any range I am likely to attempt a shot. 

***Added later: I accessed an on-line ballistics calculator to see what the trajectory is likely to be farther down-range. Because the top of the front sight is only 0.75" above the center-of-bore, the "second zero" is closer than I expected. The second zero is at 50 yards and the bullet drops to about -1.0 inch below line-of-sight by 60 yards.*** 

The front sight did not require any adjustment. 

Every rifle and every shooter is slightly different. The shim-pack that worked for me is no more than a good starting point for the next guy or gal. It should be good enough to "get you on the paper" as you dial in. 

Might be AI

 

What do you guys think?

I was wrong

I was informed via email that burning wood is permitted in the EU.

It is part of the culture in many areas.

North Rhine-Westphalia has approximately 800kg of biomass/capita, roughly evenly divided between forestry products, agricultural waste and industrial waste. Source

Even the most urban areas have wood resources. For example, Germany's most urbanized state, North Rhine-Westphalia has the equivalent of 1-1/2 face-cords of firewood in biomass per capita.

Unlike North America, even the tops and stumps and "trash" trunks are used. They are typically shredded into chips for ease of transporation. Many of the wood-stoves sold in Europe have a grate to accommodate this fuel source.

And, as might be expected, the quality, amount and location of nearly all biomass resources are precisely documented.

My apologies to my European readers. Thanks for putting up with me. 

When Quicksilver spends time with Grandpa

Posted for no particular reason

Reading to children

Quicksilver, who is 4 years-old, has taken quite an interest in my new book on snaring.

She was identifying the animals in the illustrations (which are all top-notch and one of the strong points of this book) when we got to the illustration of the skunk and porcupine.

She pointed at the porcupine and said "Pokey-pine" which was close enough for government work. 

Then I pointed at the animal on the opposite page and asked "What about that one?"

She replied "Pokey-pine" with great confidence. 

"No that is not correct. Try again" I said.

"Pokey-pine" she repeated.

I decided to give her a clue. "What does you mom say when you are riding in the car with her and then it starts to stink inside?"

"Who tooted?" Quicksilver replied. 

That cracked me up. It was not the answer I was fishing for. 

In the interest of science, we made a practice snare from the wire used to hang pictures. I then demonstrated how it worked by pretending my fist and wrist were an animal's head-and-neck.

Mrs ERJ informs me that kids crave learning real skills. They can tell the difference between "toys" and "real", "play" and "practical".

Based on Quicksilver's interest in snaring, I second Mrs ERJ's information. 

Bonus image

And now his friends are warned, too. Grenades, the original "Inclusive ammo choice".
 

More eclectia

 

A lovage plant being transplanted. Shovel for scale.

Zinnias.

Baffling

One of the truisms of dating was that you could learn a lot about the person you were dating by watching how they treated their parents.

Some people are very protective and kind to the people who are closest to them. Other people are abusive or treat them as an asset to be strip-mined. 

I "get" that in some circles "being sassy" and "sticking a thumb in da' man's" eye increases in-group status. But what if the target of the "sass" is somebody who you want to maintain a close relationship with? In my opinion, unless the relationship is pathological, it is not possible to have both. It is an either/or situation.

Burning wood

Europe is facing a crisis in the supply of natural gas. The ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia gutted the normal supply channels.

As bad as the United States is for unwieldy regulations, the EU is worse. I have been given to understand that it is pretty much impossible to burn wood for space heating, even of old people are dying from hypothermia. At least in the US, the Executive Branch can unburden power producers from air quality standards via "Emergency Relief" powers. The authority in the EU seems to be much more diluted and less capable of moving quickly.

Kubota update

He just texted me "Huge 8 point out here".

He went out there with one arrow. I hope he gets lucky! 

I purchased my deer tag today

In southern, lower Michigan, hunters are restricted to five does per season per county for 2026.

Another change is that "high powered, bottleneck, center-fire cartridges" are legal in all parts of Michigan for deer hunting. I have already heard dire predictions of carnage falling out of the sky from seven miles away.

For that to happen, the deer would have to be climbing trees. Regardless, hunters: Pay attention to what is downrange from your intended target.

Relative biomass

Scaled so human biomass (on earth) is set to 100%.

The classes of terrestrial animal with the greatest biomass are termites and earthworms.

Regarding election results

We survived 12 years of Obama. We can endure two years of grid-lock. 

If the Democrats ran on cost-of-living in 2026, it will be interesting to see if the policies they implement will reduce costs. Sadly, the US electorate tends to have very short memories.

In talking to people who shoot at pop-up targets from 25 yards to 400 yards, the one's that "kill" the shooter are the 25 yard ones. Washington D.C. is about 500 miles from Eaton County. Time spent in my gardens and orchards will be more productive than whining about the new set of yahoos coming into office.