The Hobbit Hole XXXVIII - There and Back Again!

[SuziQ]

Heh.

[300winmag]

Tonight's Saturday Night Gun Pron looks at an improved method of leveling a scope's crosshairs with a laser level. I found a couple of gadgets laying around that speed up the process, and increase my confidence in the job, considerably over my old method of trying to line things up with a physical plumb line.

My model of Ryobi laser is still being closed out for $29 at Home Despot. What's new in this setup is the M1913 riser, and a scope level that clamps onto the rail, and not the scope itself. That means I can level the riser, put the scope on, and then square up the crosshairs.

Until I found the level, I always had problems assuring the squareness of whatever optics I was working on. Now I can keep an eye on things, and know I'm not going astray (at least as far as a crude bubble level will allow).

Here's a Leupold AR 1.5-4x20 scope in a GG&G M16 QD mount. It's a one-inch tube, and GG&G only makes 30 and 34mm rings, so I have a set of their plastic inch-to-30mm adapters in the rings. You can see the bubble level telling me the riser, and therefore the mount, is properly horizontal.

And here is the best picture I could come up with showing the vertical line projected on the furnace in this case, with the scope ready for me to look through, and make sure the crosshairs are square when I look through it. I found the line was easier to see if I just set the level to project a vertical line, rather than both horizontal and vertical.

The setup was quick, and I knew it was as accurate as my tools would allow. The vertical laser line was bright enough to shine through the crosshairs, something sighting on a string just couldn't do. I now get enough accuracy out of this setup to realize I might have fractions-of-a-degree errors in the bubble level, or in my ability to hold things square while I torque down the screws. But I also realize there is nothing out there for me to use to prevent that. It would take some laboratory-grade equipment that doesn't exist to prove the errors were wrung out of the system.

Still, the process brought a big smile to my face when I was done. I got another smile when I mounted this "grownup" scope on my now "grownup" Colt M4-22. That $40 chicom scope just didn't seem right after all the other work I put into the rifle.

Leave it to GG&G to know the proper ring height to make things work properly on AR-15 types.

Look for a Sunday supplement tomorrow. Much later today, actually.

[300winmag]

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Open casting call for the Hobbit, tomorrow, Wellington, NZ (in case you know anyone there).

Casting rumor:
Cate Blanchett as Galadriel.

[ExGeeEye]

Glad she's coming back. To me the real surprise is there's a place for Galadriel in The Hobbit.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

To me the real surprise is there's a place for Galadriel in The Hobbit.

As the bearer of one of the three elven rings of power, Galadriel would have been a member of the White Council, along with Elrond Halfelven, Saruman the White, Gandalf the Grey, and the other leaders of wizards, elves, dwarves, and men.

[SuziQ]

As long as kitteh isn’t wearing metal, he won’t show up on the detectors! ;o)

[osagebowman]

Evening winmag - had not thought about using the laser level for that vertical line; fascinating. In other newz, the six grains of unique and 200 grains RNFP feeds well and performs admirably.

Good Evening ALL - The warm spell allowed us to remove the cannas and they are in the basement till spring. This time we noted the contents i.e. size and color. We tend to forget which went where come springtime.

[Corin Stormhands]

Show’s over for 2009.

You may now begin telling me not to do the 2010 show...

[SuziQ]

*rolls eyes* Why even try? ;o)

[300winmag]

Sorry the Sunday Supplement is so late, but I have a good excuse, which I will try out on you shortly.

First, a bit of unfinished trivia from yesterday. I got so wrapped up in aligning scopes using a laser level that I forgot to mention that I upgraded the dummy suppressor on my GSG-5 with a better dummy suppressor. This is a "M4-style" can made by MFI, which also makes the real thing.

The markings are not quite correct, in keeping with intellectual property rights. In this case, the dummy is a solid aluminum bar with a hole drilled through it for the barrel, and lots of holes drilled partway into it to simulate the heat shield on this model suppressor. Real cans do get hot, because they have to deal with all that hot gas that no longer serves any purpose except make noise once the bullet in on the way.

Here it is on the GSG-5, which is approaching completion asymptotically.

Now that that's out of the way, I can announce that I also committed Sig handgun this week. A vey nice Sig P229, complete with its classy blue security case.

The EBR store just sold out the last Sig Mosquito, so I decided to go full-size instead. And if you haven't spotted it yet, the other side shows that this one is in .22lr.

My only complaint, and the reason this article is so late, is that it took a long time for me to detail-strip the Sig, and "de-oil" it. It looked like the dunked the weapon in cooking oil. After washing with alcohol, and drying, I lubed it with Nanolube, figuring it should start off its working life properly.

Now my next task is to find a good price for a 9mm conversion kit for it. I refuse to purchase "unnatural" calibers like .40S&W and .347Sig for a handgun that I just wanted as a high-class plinker. I also have to cruise the Brownell's site to see if there are tools or accessories that I now "must have".

[osagebowman]

Nice one winmag - the magazine was a give-away. I think you'll be pleased with it. That's a nice .22 handgun. The GSG looks tacti-cool alright. Very nice pair of .22s. Won't be long and you'll be buying .22s by the case, not just by the brick.

[SuziQ]

We had dinner Sat. night with some friends. She had taken an all day handgun course done by the SigSauer folks, up in NH. Her husband had previously worked with a woman who now works for SigSauer. Carol said the course was terrific,and they got to shoot lots of guns, which she said was a lot of fun.

[300winmag]

Won't be long and you'll be buying .22s by the case, not just by the brick.

I've been trying to buy .22s by the case now, without luck. But I've been able to get Federal Champions by the brick at Gander Mountain, with no trouble.

Let me rephrase that: no trouble for me, but a big PITA for Gander Mountain. I buy another plastic ammo can, and then put five bricks of Federal in it. Then I take it to the checkout counter, and the "fun" begins.

The POS system ("point of sale", but looks more like "piece of sh1t" to me) can't handle the barcode on the outside of the brick. The poor schmoe has to open one box, and scan the barcode for the box of 50. Even then, the system won't allow him to just put in "x50" next to it. He as to scan the same box 49 more times to complete the sale.

I haven't bought any Federal from them in two weeks. I owe them some more business. I can't help it if their system sucks.

[osagebowman]

I have seen some pictures of the SigAcademy, nice facility. Might be worth a trip up there for you and SirKit.

[SuziQ]

Yeah, I'm going to talk to Carol about maybe doing a trip up there with her, if she goes back.

I had my meeting with the Sgt. who handles LTCs in our town. It was great. He just put all the info from my application into the system, and we chatted a bit. Then we did fingerprints. The town has a digital system, too, but my fingertips were so dry the machine kept rejecting the prints! He gave me some moisturizer, and I lubed them up, but it still had problems with them. We ended up getting two good four finger views, and he over-rode a few of the single ones, because the machine didn't like the fact that the single ones weren't matching up with the four-finger prints. He printed the card, and will send it in to the State. Hope that works. I told him I'd just had my prints done last Friday for my new job, and that they were being sent to the FBI. So I'm going to be in the system now! Ruh Roh.;o)

[ExGeeEye]

RIP Roy Disney.

May his heirs continue the maintenance and restoration of his Uncle Walt's vision.

[SuziQ]

Oh my goodness. I knew he was getting on up there. What a dynasty Disney has been. Too bad they did so many PC movies in the last few years. Their early stuff was SO good!

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Too bad they did so many PC movies in the last few years

The Disney's lost control of the company nearly twenty years ago.

[Corin Stormhands]

So last night I opted to stay downstairs with the dog to give Not Valerie the chance to get a good night’s sleep. But he decided around 1:00 a.m. he ~had~ to be with her so he cried and then climbed his way upstairs.

This morning he did not want to come down. Stood at the top of the stairs barking for us to come back up, which of course we couldn’t. After about 10 minutes of trying to convince him to come down. I helped him down.

His back legs just can’t handle it. If I hadn’t been there to stop/hold him. He would have missed the first step and fallen all the way down. He won’t go upstairs if Not Valerie is downstairs. So we’re going to be blocking the stairs.