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The Hobbit Hole XXXV - ...is Water Hot that smokes and steams.

Posted on 01/03/2008 6:35:58 PM PST by HairOfTheDog

Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!

Sing hey! for the bath at close of day
That washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is anoble thing!

O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain.
and the brook that leaps from hill to plain;
but better than rain or rippling streams
is Water Hot that smokes and steams.

O! Water cold we may pour at need
down a thirsty throat and be glad indeed;
but better is Beer, if drink we lack,
and Water Hot poured down the back.

O! Water is fair that leaps on high
in a fountain white beneath the sky;
but never did fountain sound so sweet
as splashing Hot Water with my feet!

See also: http://freeper.the-hobbit-hole.net

Web page for our moot reports and troop support information!




TOPICS: The Hobbit Hole
KEYWORDS: backyardducks; bigblackboots; buttscanner; chickens; cleanpastures; company4coffee; getbackstare; happybirthdayjrrt; icanhaskeyword; keywordihasone; lilsnewjob; longbrownhair; needmorekeywords; newlilblulilpurtycar; nicecatholicmechanic; norespect4corin; soupandbread; stormyweather; thesecondkeyword; theveryfirstkeyword; wotsitgotsinbasement
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To: RosieCotton
So it is The Two Towers once again. I agree that the new BG show was mostly a catching up om where we are kind of show. The coming attractions showed some interesting stuff, including a bunch of Cylons not seen for a while.
7,421 posted on 04/05/2008 4:48:22 PM PDT by Lucius Cornelius Sulla (All of this has happened before, and will happen again!)
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To: Lucius Cornelius Sulla
So it is The Two Towers once again.

meanwhile...

7,422 posted on 04/05/2008 4:49:13 PM PDT by Corin Stormhands
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To: Lucius Cornelius Sulla
Yup. BSG got off to a good start this season. A good, epic space battle will do that. We're watching TTT now and watched SG-1's The Ark of Truth which was a direct-to-DVD 2-hour mewvie. It was pretty good - tied up a few loose ends. The extra features were a hoot, to boot.
7,423 posted on 04/05/2008 5:26:31 PM PDT by Lil'freeper (Don't taze me, bro!)
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To: Lucius Cornelius Sulla

I don’t remember The Video Professor being in the story. (ah hate commercials)


7,424 posted on 04/05/2008 5:27:08 PM PDT by Lil'freeper (Don't taze me, bro!)
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To: Lil'freeper

I believe that the Video Professor was the one who explained the Stargate and the Go’ald’s to new recruits, offscreen naturally.


7,425 posted on 04/05/2008 6:06:23 PM PDT by Lucius Cornelius Sulla (All of this has happened before, and will happen again!)
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To: Lucius Cornelius Sulla

Apparently he has an office at the Golden Hall, too. (grumble)


7,426 posted on 04/05/2008 6:12:29 PM PDT by Lil'freeper (Don't taze me, bro!)
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To: Lil'freeper; All

Okay folks. I’m outta here. I’ll try to check in from the road. Otherwise see you next weekend.


7,427 posted on 04/05/2008 6:51:18 PM PDT by Corin Stormhands
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To: Corin Stormhands

Safe travels...


7,428 posted on 04/05/2008 7:02:47 PM PDT by Lil'freeper (Don't taze me, bro!)
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To: Corin Stormhands

Safe Journey Corin; we’ll be impatiently waiting for newz from the Cresent City and tales of the Chicory Coffee and Gumbo. OB & LSA


7,429 posted on 04/05/2008 7:09:34 PM PDT by osagebowman
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To: Overtaxed

Yup, quite a few folks have them up. Ours, well, they’re still napping. Just three more bushes to go for tomorrow and a couple are now slated for removal.


7,430 posted on 04/05/2008 7:13:05 PM PDT by osagebowman
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To: osagebowman; Corin Stormhands
Chicory Coffee and Gumbo

Mmmm. Made Gumbo last night. Chicory coffee and beignets; now that's something I haven't had in a while.

7,431 posted on 04/05/2008 7:19:59 PM PDT by SuziQ
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To: HairOfTheDog; RosieCotton
I always thought lembas was like beignets. ;o)
7,432 posted on 04/05/2008 7:23:24 PM PDT by SuziQ
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To: SuziQ

I don’t think they’d make for good waybread...


7,433 posted on 04/05/2008 7:32:23 PM PDT by RosieCotton
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To: Corin Stormhands

Safe travels! Post if/when you can!


7,434 posted on 04/05/2008 7:32:44 PM PDT by RosieCotton
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To: Lil'freeper
The extra features were a hoot, to boot.

Geez, I've been so busy, I haven't watched the DVD yet, much less the extra features. I saw it as a screener a few months ago, but I should make time for the real thing now.

7,435 posted on 04/05/2008 7:50:36 PM PDT by 300winmag (Life is hard! It is even harder when you are stupid!)
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To: Ramius; g'nad; osagebowman; Lost Dutchman; Squantos; river rat; Corin Stormhands; JenB; TalonDJ; ...
Tonight's Saturday Night Gun Pron (tm)

Looks at the ever-changing world of M16 magazines. With a weapon this prolific, there are lots of ideas of how magazines should be built. We'll look at just a few of the ones out there.

From left to right, we see the current GI aluminum mag (with aftermarket mods), the H&K all-steel magazine, a Thermold plastic mag, a Lancer Systems translucent mag, and a Magpul plastic magazine.

The story starts with the GI aluminum 30-round magazine, which was developed in the late 1960s, and has been tweaked by civilians and military since then. The original 20-round magazine was a simple box, because it was felt that there was no real need to consider a curved magazine due to the slight taper of the 5.56mm round. In designing the 30-round mag, there was a conflict between the straight-sided top of the magazine, and the necessary curve below it. What we see is a curve tacked on to a straight section, which you can see when you carefully line up the 20-round on top of the 30.

A straightedge shows the top is really straight, and the bottom is really curved. The tricky part comes in designing a follower that can operate in both segments without binding, getting rounds misaligned, or failing to feed the last round. Also, the pressure of a full stack of rounds on the feed lips of an aluminum magazine may tend to spread the lips, which can cause misfeeds by allowing the round to start pointing upward sooner than expected when the bolt starts pushing it.

Next is the all-steel H&K magazine. There are a lot of good things said about it, and at about 3x the price of a generic aluminum magazine, there'd better be. I've looked at other brands, and some may be damn good, but I doubt you can beat the H&K.

Third from the left is the Thermold plastic magazine. The design started out as a single-use throwaway for the Canadian military. It would be loaded at the factory, and thrown away when empty. However, no matter how cheap the magazine, the concept was way too expensive for even the American military, much less the Canadian. About all I hear is that it's good for plinking, but not for staking one's life on it.

Skipping to the magazine furthest on the right, we have the Magpul plastic magazine. It looks good, and seems quite rugged. It even has a dust cover which depresses the stack of cartridges a bit, taking pressure off the feed lips. Of course, the concept behind a plastic magazine is that it's either perfect, or visibly broken. There should be no in-between state of "looks good, but hangs up some times". That's what plagued the original GI 30-rounders.

That brings us to the Lancer Systems translucent magazine, second from the right. It looks like the new kid on the block, and again it has some interesting ideas behind it, but will need the vote of real life users. Here we see a loaded and an empty one. The ammo seems easily visible, like the AUG translucent mags.

One of the biggest selling points are the two steel feed lips molded into the top of the magazine. This is supposed to avoid almost all feeding problems. Also, the "straight" upper section of the magazine, needed by M16-type weapons, is accomplished by the front and rear ribs on the outside of the magazine box. The actual magazine box is a continuous curve from start to finish. Lancer has apparently squared the circle, coming up with a completely curved magazine that still has a straight top section.

Disassembled, the magazine seems straightforward. The follower is a lot like the current GI light-green non-tip follower, but is not interchangeable, due to the internals of the mag box.

The spring is identical to the GI type, which means replacements should be easy to find. The tan color indicates it's a coated silicon-steel spring, which are supposed to be "set proof". The floor plate feels like it's rubber coated. Disassembly is easy, just not as easy as the docs say. Push the tab on one side in and down with a round, or a small screwdriver. Then stick a toothpick or something like that in the opening to keep it from closing. Push in the tab on the other side, and swing the floorplate off, using the tab in back as a hinge.

I'm keeping one of each of these brands of magazines fully loaded for quite a while. I want to see how being kept loaded for months at a time affects reliability. Of course, my sample is small, but at the rate I'm getting any free time to go the range, it will be even more months that the magazines will remain under test.

The Lancer L5 is the new kid on the block, and it looks good. But nothing can compare to the sheer elegance of the AUG magazine. After wondering for ages about how the troops reload the magazines quickly, I came across some Australian surplus:

Inside the canvas case is very ingenious set of stripper clips that nest together, and hold 15 rounds each.

Two strippers will fill the standard 30-round magazine. What I can't figure out is why their high-capacity magazines are a strange number, 42 rounds, when 45 rounds would have worked out to exactly three stripper clips.

For Australian troops serving along with American units, Steyr developed a replacement stock for the AUG adapted to use the M16 magazine, rather than the unique AUG plastic mag. So those Aussies get to learn the ins and outs of M16 "magazineology" just like everyone else.

7,436 posted on 04/05/2008 10:01:56 PM PDT by 300winmag (Life is hard! It is even harder when you are stupid!)
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To: 300winmag

BTTT !!


7,437 posted on 04/05/2008 10:29:12 PM PDT by Squantos (Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.©)
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To: RosieCotton
I don’t think they’d make for good waybread...

Yeah, but they sure are tasty!

7,438 posted on 04/05/2008 10:56:08 PM PDT by SuziQ
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To: All
RIP Charlton Heston.
7,439 posted on 04/06/2008 3:49:10 AM PDT by ExGeeEye (NIE or no NIE, I've been waiting since 11/04/79 to do something about Iran.)
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To: ExGeeEye

RIP indeed. He was a good man.


7,440 posted on 04/06/2008 4:26:48 AM PDT by Lil'freeper (Don't taze me, bro!)
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