I didn’t manage to get everything done that I wanted to get done during my extended vacation from work. In particular, gun crankery and gun books kind of went by the wayside, for reasons of time and weather.
The gun crankery is still coming. And a thought occurred to me the other day: I can actually do some quick gun book crankery, because I have three new gun books in the stack and can just point folks to those books online. Don’t need to pull out the bibliographies or take pictures. Yes, it is lazy, and yes, there will be less lazy gun book crankery coming. Consider this a stopgap.
More seriously, I do think these new books are worth writing about and promoting to my readers.
In order to avoid disappointing my gun book buddies, I’m going to put the gun books up front. After those, I’m going to talk about one new gun-related item, and one new non-gun related item, so anyone who wants can skip over the non-book parts (or can skip to the non-book parts).
Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson, 5th Edition, Jim Supica and Richard Nahas.
I can’t review this.
1. It would be pointless. You know if you need this book. And if you have a serious Smith and Wesson problem, you need this book.
(Speaking of S&W: these “No Lock” classics are interesting. I commented to some of my friends: could we be seeing the end of the “Hillary Hole”?)
B. Jim Supica is sort of a friend of mine (in the sense that I see him every year at the Symposiums, and sometimes when we go to Tulsa, and I think he could pick me out of a police lineup) so I have a conflict of interest.
III. I’m actually credited in the front of the book, so conflict of interest^2. (I’m listed because I participated in the “Midnight Pricing Panel”. My participation was basically sitting around looking stupid while the smart people talked.)
Also, I haven’t read it yet. This is more of a reference work, though I do plan to give it a cover-to-cover reading soon. As I said, if you need this, you know you need it, so what I say doesn’t matter. (I bought both the physical and Kindle editions.)
John Taffin’s Book of Small-Bore Sixguns, Semiautomatics and Single-Shots, John Taffin. I think the ‘Zon is going to stock this, but they don’t list it right now: I bought my copy direct from Wolfe Publishing.
This is the fourth in what (per Wolfe) is going to be a five-volume set. The other three are The Book of the .45 Caliber, The Book of the .44 Caliber, and The Book of Double-Action Sixguns, all of which I have and have read. I have not read Small-Bore yet, but it looks very similar to the other three: a massive (556 page) book with more color pictures than Carter had liver pills. And it tickles my fancy, since some of the chapters include the .22 Jet, the Harvey .224 Kay-Chuck, and the .22 Hornet, in addition to the standard .22 LR.
I do not see, however, that the book covers the USFA Zip .22. (Mr. Taffin was a big fan of USFA’s single-action sixguns, and has written about them extensively in the other books. The Zip 22 pretty much killed USFA.)
I keep threatening to write a review of the Taffin books. I might do that once I complete this one. As much as I like Mr. Taffin (who I have met) and as lavishly produced as the Wolfe books are, there are things about them that kind of bother me, and I’d like to see if those trends continue in this book.
The U.S. Model 1917 Rifle: “America’s Enfield”, Bruce N. Canfield. This was a Christmas gift from my beloved and indulgent sister off of my Amazon wish list. I own a sporterized Enfield, and would not mind picking up an original one cheap. Also haven’t read this yet, but Mr. Canfield wrote one of the definitive books on the Garand and has a pretty good reputation.
(Non-gun books that were also a present from my beloved and indulgent sister: In a Narrow Grave: Essays on Texas, Larry McMurtry. While I know I have to read Lonesome Dove at some point, and I want to read The Last Picture Show and Horseman, Pass By, I find myself more drawn to McMurtry’s non-fiction. World Travel: An Irreverent Guide, Anthony Bourdain and Laurie Woolever. I need to find a Bourdain bibliography, but I think once I read this, I will have read everything he ever had published, except the “Get Jiro!” and Hungry Ghosts graphic novels. Into the Breach: An Apostolic Exhortation to Catholic Men, Most. Rev. Thomas J Olmsted. Yes, I have Catholic tastes.)
(See what I did there?)
===
I’ve been looking for some way to organize my ammo stockpile. It has been in ammo cans, factory boxes, shopping bags, tucked away in drawers or sitting on the floor.
A while back, I saw this. I am an unabashed Hornady fan boy (for reasons) and I liked the product. But I didn’t like it nearly $600 worth.
About two years ago (I think) Mike the Musicologist and I were running around the Hill Country and found them at Los Cazadores in Stonewall (“Los Cazadores” is Spanish for “The Cazadores”)…for $250. They only had two. Mike bought one. I didn’t buy the other one because I thought it would be a stretch, in terms of money and fitting it into Mike’s car. Next time we went there, they were gone, and Hornady has discontinued them.
Before Christmas, I went down to Cabela’s to do some Christmas shopping for other people and found this for $250, which was my strike point price. So after Christmas, MtM and FotB Andrew and I went back so I could purchase one (and so we could browse: Andrew is really interested in the .500 S&W Magnum).
This is a different model. I can’t even find it on Hornady’s website. And it is larger, which is important, because the clerk told us he didn’t think we could fit it in Mike’s car. I was trying to figure out a way to move it from Buda, and thought maybe I could rent a truck from Home Despot or borrow one from somebody.
On our way to our next destination, I hopped on the Cabela’s website. Turns out if you ordered it online, Bass Pro/Cabela’s would ship it…for free.
So I ordered one.
Also turns out, and I should have known this: it counts as “firearm safety equipment” and is thus exempt from Texas sales tax.
It was delivered, and with the help of FotB Andrew, we got it up the stairs and into the gun room. It took a little sweat to put it together (I had trouble with the shelves, but that was more me not being really mechanically inclined) but I have it mostly where I want it, and ammo inside it. It isn’t bolted to the studs, but I’m hoping the ammo in it will keep it stable. (Children don’t go in that room, and we don’t have earthquakes here.)
Mike’s came with:
- Two barrel keys
- One magnetic motion light
- Two adjustable shelves
- Three plastic ammo cans
- Three shelf/floor mats
- Ten magnetic rewritable shelf labels
I got two keys, one floor mat, and three shelves instead of two. That’s it. Mine is 55″H x 21″W x 16″ D, while Mike’s is 40″ H x 12″ W x 18″ L. So I think mine is a little larger.
Many of those “extras” I haven’t been able to find on Amazon or Hornady’s website. I can probably find floor mats that will work. Ammo cans are widely available and I know where to get more if I need them.
I bought a wireless hygrometer and stuck the remote sensor inside. It seems to be working fine. Except the remote sensor has two magnets on the back to hold it in place. The magnets are loosely press-fitted into holes, and come out with no provocation at all. I just put the sensor on one of the shelves for now: a drop or two of Krazy Glue (“A thousand and one uses. Now, a thousand and two.”) in the magnet holes will probably fix that.
I also bought (but haven’t installed yet) one of these rechargeable dehumidifiers and two of these SnapSafe safe lights. For shelf labels, I picked up a package of these, as that was the closest thing I could find.
Overall, I’m feeling pretty happy with this setup. It makes me think I’m being a mature, responsible adult.
====
Mom had been asking me about those Tablo TV devices for a while. I resisted getting one because we didn’t have the correct setup for it. One of the things that annoys me is that there’s no HDMI port and no way to connect it directly to a TV: you have to play recorded programs back through some sort of app on a compatible device.
But she has a Roku on her TV, which apparently has a Tablo app. (I haven’t set it up yet, but the Tablo app on my phone popped up a box when it detected her Tablo.) Also, we recently got an Apple TV to use as a HomeKit hub (another set of problems for another time) and that works with Tablo.
But I have had a general policy for a while now: I don’t buy things advertised on TV. Almost every time I do, I end up disappointed. There was one thing I bought for Mom fairly recently because she’d seen it on TV, and it actually worked. I wish I could remember what it was, but that was one out of a lot of disappointments.
But what the heck, Christmas. So I bought one. My review:
Yet another “as seen on TV” disappointment. I came very close to returning it.
The biggest problem I have with the Tablo is that approximately once a day, it locks up and becomes completely unresponsive to any of the apps on any device. You have to go to the device and manually press the “reset” button to get it communicating again. I think it still records programs when it is in this state, but good luck to you if you’re upstairs wanting to watch a recorded program and the Tablo’s locked up downstairs.
I left this feedback as a review on the Tablo website, as a verified purchaser through their shop. They deleted it.
I also find the user interface (on the AppleTV, iPhone, and iPad apps) to be very clunky and not intuitive. If there’s a way to start watching a recording in progress at the beginning and skip through it, I haven’t found it yet.
My hope is that Tablo will ship a firmware update that resolves the lock-up issue. If they do, I’ll reconsider my stance. But right now, I can’t recommend buying one.