Monday Gunday: Objects of Desire

All the cool gunnie bloggers are jumping on the bandwagon of "What 5 guns would you get if price nor practicality were not an issue?"  Since I am the bratty little sister of the Gun Blog Black List, I figured I'd take a piece of this action myself.  

But here's the thing:  most of my choices are boring. This is due mostly to the fact that I am still new to the hobby, and while grognards like Tam and Robb have completed their arsenals and are merely looking for collector's pieces, I haven't finished my essentials list.

That said: 

1) Glock 26. This has less to do with any belief that polymer pistols from Austria are better, and more to do with the fact that because they are so numerous, prices for ammunition and magazines are going to be low. And since my Kel-Tec also eats 9mm Glock magazines, I can feed & maintain two firearms for the price of one. It is for logistical simplicity that I want a Glock rather than a cheaper 9mm with incompatible magazines.

2) Addendum to above: not truly a gun but an accessory to it, this li'l doodad makes me all tingly down below:

The ability to fire 100 rounds without reloading? And will fit both my carbine and pistol of desire? Oh yes please.

3) Kel-Tec KSG. 12 gauge. Twice the ammo capacity of a traditional pump shotgun. Dual tubes mean I can load one side with buckshot and the other side with slugs, birdshot, or whatever else I want for maximum versatility. It's a bullpup design so it's very, very short. And it comes with top and bottom picatinny rails. Plus it looks hella sci-fi.

4) Kel-Tec PMR-30. Yes, it's a pistol that shoots .22 magnum. It's small, it's light, it's easily concealable, and the recoil is negligible which means faster target reacquisition. Plus, it has a thirty round magazine. High capacity plus low recoil makes it ideal as a CCW for either myself or my septuagenarian mother.

5) Kel-Tec RFB. It probably says horrible things about my character that a majority of guns on my list are from Kel-Tec, but they're a Florida-based company, so I'm supporting my state economy. Also, they seem to understand what I want in a firearm. This baby also looks sci-fi, is another short bullpup, and fires a 7.62 NATO round -- which is almost the same thing as .308 Winchester, and because this is a civilian rifle the two are interchangeable (unless I am greatly mistaken, in which case please let me know!)

6) AK-47 or SKS. Because I am a fan of Russian durability, and there are hundreds of millions of rifles in the world that use this same round. Also, there are tons of accessory options for either of them.


Looking at this list, one can certainly see a theme developing:

• I like short guns because I am a short person. 
• I may not be a size (caliber) queen but I am definitely an ammo capacity junkie. More is always better.
• I like the ability to accesorize. Lots of rail mounts for me, please. 
• I like simple and rugged, because I don't trust myself not to be an incompetent klutz. 

So with all said, I'm going to break those rules and show you my last object of desire: the Alaskan Co-Pilot.

I don't know who she is, but I want her to play me in the TV movie about my life.

This beast is just beautiful. I don't know that I'd ever use it, and I'd go broke shooting it (unless I restricted myself to using .410 shotshells, which is like buying a Ferrari and not driving faster than 35 mph), but it's beautiful and elegant and has a crisp lever action and oh look, it unscrews into two pieces without changing the scope's zero:



I want all of these firearms, but the Alaskan there is the only one which has elicited from me a deep, longing lust. I have a term for this: getting a gunboner.

Unknown Ponies: Questions, Addenda, and Advanced Rules

1) Unknown Ponies: Failure is Awesome is up to version 1.5. Most of the changes are grammatical in nature, with a few bits added for additional clarity. The link is the same, as every time I update the version I overwrite the old one.

2) Would people be interested if I added stats of the Mane 6, Cutie Mark Crusaders, and other NPCs (Big Macintosh, Derpy Hooves, Mayor Mare etc)? Would you prefer them either appended to the PDF or as a separate download?

3) Advanced Rules: Names and the Cute-ceañera
While many players of Unknown Ponies will have a firm notion in mind of their PC's eventual cutie mark and will name him or her accordingly, there are some players who will find it more interesting and challenging to leave their cutie marks up to chance and role-playing. This however presents a problem when it comes to names.

While some ponies have names which are unrelated to their cutie marks (Pinkie Pie), many more of them do. This is not a problem on the show, as the writers have the ability to decide ahead of time what a pony's cutie mark will be and name that pony accordingly. For a player who wants to role-play the discovery of a cutie mark, this is not possible, and as characters need to be named something, they are forced to either take a generic name or risk choosing a name which will potentially clash once their special talent is discovered.

Correcting this is simple: we take the concept of the cute-ceañera -- a party held for colts and fillies upon gaining a cutie mark, and combine it with the Japanese coming-of-age ceremony known as the genpuku.  When a pony comes of age, she may choose a new adult name (usually related to her cutie mark) at her cute-ceañera, or she may choose to keep her childhood name. Neither is more socially-acceptable than the other; it is entirely a personal choice of that pony.

Silly Guns

This is somewhere between a Monday Gunday and a Wednesday Night Wackiness post. Logically, I should have posted this on Tuesday, but yesterday I was squee-ing my fool head off because of all the hits I was getting on my Unknown Ponies post.

Pretty much like this:



Nota bene:  I am fully aware that many of you are annoyed by my constant posting of pony pictures, memes and videos. What you need to realize is that I feel that exact same annoyance every time you go on about sports, wrestling, NASCAR, or "arrow to the knee" jokes that stopped being funny eight seconds after Skyrim came out. So deal with it.


Okay, so: guns. As some of you may know, the 2012 SHOT Show was last weekend in Las Vegas, and for those of you who don't, suffice it to say that it's a trade show for gun manufacturers. Anyway, one of the biggest splashes made this year were two rifle offerings by Mossberg, one in .30-30 and one in .22LR:

Now those of you who have known me for a while know my tastes.I am a geardo, a compulsive accessorizer, and have an appreciation for the aesthetically funky. But these... oh, but these...

I am torn. One the one hand, these are AWFUL, because no one needs a tactical lever-action anything. On the other hand, they are so resplendently awful they actually back into awesome by way of absurdity, and they do look a lot like the kinds of rifles you'd see on Firefly. So I can appreciate them as silly, over-the-top jokes, and most of the time no one really gets my humor anyway so I'm okay with that.

But still, two things keep nagging at me. For one, that .22LR is slowly growing on me like a fungus. "Hmm, six-position stock," I say, "perfect for those of us with short arms. Those rails are great for mounting bipods or lasers for precision shooting. And by having plastic furniture instead of wood, it's both lighter and weatherproof. And lever-action means my left-handed mother can shoot it without difficulty. And I am quite fond of a tube-feed."

Really, the only thing stopping me is the black color (and the price, of course). Not that I have anything against black; I am quite pro-black, what with my goth tendencies. But tactical black simply does not suit a .22 of any kind. If, however, it were to be Duracoated in a nice camouflage scheme...

The other thing which nags at me is that this is possibly a case of fridge brilliance on the part of Mossberg. Both of these rifles have fixed ammo capacity and cannot, it any way, be made semi-auto. They are the perfect definition of "California Compliant", up to not having a pistol grip. Yet they look tactical, therefore "scary." I wouldn't be surprised if these models were made expressly to screw with California legislators, who will no doubt want to ban them because they're "evil black rifles"... and yet they're 100% compliant, which means that California is basically scared of the color black.

Which would be racist.








The more I think about these rifles, the more I like them, despite them being hideous. And that's just wacky.

WNW: The Growing Dead

"The departure of Frank Darabont has seen The Walking Dead go in a whole new direction. This new intro for season 2.5 seems to shine a light on the character dynamics of this ragtag group of zombie survivors and the impending daddy issues that Laurie's pregnancy is sure to bring."

There may be a commercial that interrupts the first few seconds. My apologies, but I can't do anything about that.




(In cause you couldn't recall, the theme music is from Growing Pains.)

This pleases me

Today, my rules for Unknown Ponies: Failure is Awesome have been linked to by not only Friendship is Dragons, but also by Jeff Rients, one of the gods of the Old School Renaissance.

Unknown Ponies: Failure is Awesome

Ever since I posted about the My Little Pony RPG I ran on New Years' Day, there has been a demand for the rules I used to run the game. It has taken me longer than I expected, but I have finished the first draft and am now putting this out for the Internet Hivemind to digest.

Please read it and tell me what you think. Or, even better, playtest it! Try and break the system (probably won't be difficult). I wholeheartedly welcome all constructive criticism.

The PDF of Unknown Ponies: Failure is Awesome may be found here.

Languages of Pellatarrum: Orcish

Think of the vilest insult possible, one that would incite in the listener a murderous rage born of righteous indignation. This is how orcs say "hello".

As was stated earlier,

Every encounter with an orc must be treated like a battle, because it is. Even in a peaceful situation, an orc will use vile insults, belligerent language, threatening gestures and anything else that will cow the listener into accepting the subservient role.

For orcs, everything -- even conversation -- is a contest to see who can make the other flinch first. If you flinch, you prove yourself a weakling, and therefore must submit to the stronger without question. 

This has resulted in a very direct form of diction and vocabulary. It is highly specific about what you are going to do to whom, and into which orifices you are going to shove which objects. As can be surmised, Orcish has a refined set of grammatical objects, and the passive voice is used only in the sense of "this person or people used to do these things, but they don't any more, because they are dead or enslaved."

Interestingly enough, Orcish lacks nearly all forms of pronouns*. Names are used exclusively; if needed to refer to a group, then the tribe name or species name is used. Therefore, when Grashnargh says "Orcs kill humans!" he really does mean ALL orcs (or at least those he can accurately speak for) will indeed kill ALL humans (that they can get their hands on). There isn't much room for conditionals among orcs, other than the classic "if you X, then I will Y" statement.

* Chief exceptions being demonstrative (This, these, that, those) and interrogative (who, which, what) in nature.

Grammar structure is very basic and is perfectly suited for the battlefield. It can be spoken quickly, with a minimum of effort (necessary when shouting commands), and is immediately understood by even the dimmest warrior. Very few words are polysyllabic, and these are mostly proper names. The words themselves are harsh-sounding, containing many hard consonants and spitting sounds -- if it sounds like something is burning, it's likely Orcish.

Imagine what it would sound like if a Samurai warrior were to shout in Swedish at the top of his lungs. The results would sound much like this, and be a good example of spoken Orcish:





There are two things a non-native speaker of Orcish must keep in mind. First, when negotiating with an orc, do so from a position of either superior strength or extreme psychosis. If you immediately submit, you declare yourself a weakling and therefore deserve to be dominated. If you debate vigorously but stoically, a fight will probably break out because neither of you will back down and the words are seen only as a pre-fight posturing. And if you attack, well, the conversation is over.

Your best approach is to think of it like two dogs trying to determine dominance, or two swordsmen in an iaijutsu duel before they strike. There is a brief moment between posturing and violence where one of the parties can potentially realize the other is capable of inflicting such a sound thrashing that it's preferable to surrender and deal with the loss of stature/honor. In short, it's all  about presenting a strong enough first impression that it is immediately clear that violence is not likely to end well for anyone, so you might as well just talk.

The second thing to know is that there isn't a single Orcish language. Due to their mercurial nature and fractured society, their language mutates and shifts with each new group or tribal offshoot, until one tribe has difficulty understanding the other (the differences aren't quite as extreme as those between Mandarin and Cantonese, but close). Therefore, each time a new branch of Orcish dialect is encountered, the speaker needs to make a Linguistics skill roll in order to comprehend what is being spoken, and to speak in the new language. This applies to orcs and native Orcish speakers, which is another reason why so many orcish tribes go to war with each other.

Far left: One version of contemporary written Orcish. Far right: Old High Orcish.

This difficulty in communication also extends to the written word. Unlike other languages, Orcish is pictographic in nature, much like ancient Cuneiform. However, due to the shattering of their culture and the loss of much of their heritage, their written language has actually devolved from complex to crude. In addition to these devolutions being nearly incompatible between tribes, whatever information remains in Old High Orcish is incomprehensible to them (and in fact to most sages, barring either magical interpretation or consulting ancient elven or draconic sources).

Special thanks to both Von and Mxyplk for their help and though-provoking questions.

CONTENT BLOCKED UNDER AUTHORITY GRANTED BY H.R. 3261 & S.968

http://sopastrike.com/strike/

Monday Gunday: Accuracy is a Mounted Bayonet, Too

You know what I really hate?  Waking up with a spasming neck and a throbbing headache that ruins the entire day for me. I hate it even worse when I did absolutely nothing the day before (like, drinking or partying) to earn such pain in the first place.

Which is basically a long-winded way of saying "Monday's post is late because I felt like shit all day."

Following up on my previous bayonet-related post, the weather on Sunday was nice enough (neither too cold nor too hot) for me to take Izzy out to the range and see if the freshly-mounted bayonet would affect my accuracy. I was also curious to see if the rangemaster or his associates would hassle me for mounting a bayonet in the first place.

The answers to these pressing questions are "Yes, it did," and "No, they did not." I did get at least one incredulous "Is that a bayonet on your rifle?" asked by a fellow shooter, but when I explained how it acted as a counterweight to barrel whip he just nodded as if it all made sense. Honestly, I don't know if it really did make sense to him, or if he was just humoring the crazy chick with a rifle taller than she, but either way it doesn't matter.

I also find it very funny that whenever I offer to let people shoot Izzy, 90% of the time they say "Uh, no, thank you." You'd think I had asked them to shoot the .950 Nutpunch or something. Some days I worry for the state of modern American men.



(You want recoil? Apparently this gun broke that last shooter's second rib. Now that is recoil.)

But enough of this. You want a picture, I give you a picture.

The vital details:

• Target was at 50 yards
• 7x scope
• bipod & bayonet mounted

The first two shots I took were ranging shots, and those are covered by the 2 leftmost orange pasters. The addition of the bayonet altered the point of impact, but consistently so. I eyeballed it at "about eight clicks to the right," adjusted my scope and took a third shot. That one is the bottom hole in the 8 ring. I adjusted the scope up a bit, and you can see the results.

(The third orange paster is just a spoiler. Not sure if I flinched, or sneezed, or someone startled me.)

I'm confident that the scope is properly sighted-in for 50 yards and that everything else is dependent upon my technique. I say that because I learned an important lesson while sighting it in.

It's common knowledge among Mosinistas that the trigger on the Mosin-Nagant is not what you'd call "elegant" or "smooth." In fact, "crudely functional" is probably complimentary, as it takes a surprising amount of force to pull it back and make the bullet go boom (this is known as "trigger break").

Well, as I was squeezing the trigger, I noticed that my sight picture was actually shifting to the side. This is what we in the gun community call "not good" and so I stopped to analyze what was going on. It turns out that I was once again giving it "too much trigger," i.e. my finger was pulling the trigger, and therefore the rest of the rifle, to the right. This was making the barrel actually shift to the left, and would have completely screwed up my shot.

Realizing what was going on, I adjusted my grip by sliding my hand as far down as possible, so that only the tip of my finger was on the very tip of the trigger, as opposed to having the pad of my finger resting in the curve of the trigger. On the down side, this made each trigger pull even harder, and uncomfortable.

Picture taken from Art of the Rifle. Please go here to read the entire article. It's fascinating and well worth your time.

On the good side, each shot was practically a surprise to me, which I've been told is the hallmark of a good shot. If you anticipate it, your breathing or your tension could alter your aim, but if you don't quite know when it's coming then you can kind of "fake yourself out" into making a good shot.

As you can see, it worked splendidly. Now all I need to do work on improving my technique, and then I can move on to 100 yards!

Der Schwarzwaldenwirklichkeit (the truth of Schwarzwald)

I was cruising the various three-digit cable channels when I came across this clip from The Big O late one night. I found it particularly relevant to certain current situations, and I wonder if the rest of you feel likewise or if I'm just crazy (which is a decided possibility).





The text, for those of you distracted by giant robots and loud explosions:

Even without the events of 40 years ago, I think man would still be a creature that fears the dark. He doesn't face that fear; he averts his eyes from it and acts as if he never had any memories of his history. But, 40 years can be both a brief time and yet, a long time. Man's fear has withered. And even time tries to wither the desire to know the truth.

Is it a crime to try and learn the truth? Is it a sin to search for those things which you fear? My purpose in this world is knowledge, and the dissemination of it. And it is I who is to restore the fruits of my labors to the entire world.

Fear... It is something vital to us puny creatures. The instant man stops fearing is the instant the species will reach a dead end, only to sink to pitable lows, only to sit and wait apathetically for extinction.

Wake up! Don't be afraid of knowledge! Humans who lose the capacity to think become creatures whose existence has no value. Think, you humans who are split into two worlds, unless you want the gulf between humans to expand into oblivion, you must think!

Signed, Schwarzwald.

So what think you? Relevant to our current condition, or just the ravings of a fictional madman taken out of context?

Weltanschauung

This snippet of actual conversation with Benjamin Worley happened a few days ago:

Ben: "Magic as an element of friendship? What does that even mean? Twilight, getting A-pluses is not a personality trait!"

Me: "Well, what you need to realize is Twilight Sparkle represents the Friendship Gestalt. It says so right in the series: "When the five elements of harmony are present, the sixth will make itself known." Therefore Twilight is actually the sum of friendship -- which is totally in keeping with her personality of being a good student."

Ben: "Gestalt? What does that mean?"

Me, resisting the urge to tell him to Google it: "A gestalt is something which is greater than the sum of its parts. Voltron is the gestalt of the Lion Force."





Yes, I used Voltron to explain a German psychological term while talking about My Little Pony. I am an uber-nerd.

WNW: Bree-Yark!

Behold the Dungeon Bastard.

The Face of Liberty

Courtesy of Anne Terres, talented artist and close friend of mine, is a beautiful rendition of the All-American Golem Girl, Silence Do-Good.

She's lovely, Anne! Thank you so much. :D

Thank you!

Jennifer just made my day by becoming my 100th follower via Google Friend Connect! Thank you!

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't also thank RobertM, North, and Girl (with gun), because if they also hadn't followed me then Jennifer wouldn't be that nice round triple-digit.

So thank you, gunnie bloggers! I hope I entertain you, and you don't get too exasperated with me when I write about other nerdy things.

And of course as I write this, mike Brendan has to go and be #101. Thanks Mike! :)

Light a Candle

"One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that 'violence begets violence.' I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure (and in some cases I have) that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy."

Col. Jeff Cooper, "Cooper vs. Terrorism", Guns & Ammo Annual, 1975  

Candles are nice, but self-defense is better. Thanks to Weerd Beard for the notion (and also some really pretty photographs which make mine seem half-assed in comparison!)

For more in-depth analysis of why a candle, why a gun, and why today, I recommend the following blogs which are more experienced than I at explaining the politics of firearms and self-defense:

• Candles... with Fire Support by Linoge
• I Light My Candle For...  by Miguel
• Light a Candle Against the Dark by Brigid

To summarize my feelings on the issue (and because I am more than a little bit nerdy) I shall paraphrase from one of the great sci-fi epics of our time, Babylon 5:

We are the sheepdogs. We stand between the predator and its prey.

MLP RPG: Unknown Ponies

On January 1st, 2012, four ponies crossed the Everfree Forest to investigate disturbing reports of attacks and disappearances within the town of White Stable. This is their story...

On New Years' Day, I ran a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic role-playing game over Skype. The players were as follows:

• Jennifer Paradis as Pinkie Pie
• Will Sweet as Rainbow Dash
• Benjamin Worley as Rarity
• and Mxyzplk as Twilight Sparkle.

I'd like to state again, just for the record, that I had three male players in a game based upon a girls' cartoon, and none of them were self-conscious about playing magical pastel ponies. We all had a fantastic (dare I say fabulous?) time playing, and there were several instances in which the entire group was reduced to howling laughter and/or tears.

Despite all the work I did last year talking about MLP:FiM is a Dungeons & Dragons game, I didn't use D&D or Pathfinder for the system. I figured that since this was a game based upon a cartoon, the system should be streamlined and fast-moving. To that end, I used Unknown Armies, which I further simplified because, again, this was a game about cartoon characters and I felt it didn't really matter if, say, I delineated the exact mechanical differences between Applejack's ability to perform farm games and her skill at rodeo. Therefore, if a pony had a skill, she had it at the rating of the appropriate stat.

Here are the character sheets:

• Applejack
• Fluttershy
• Pinkie Pie
• Rainbow Dash
• Rarity
• Twilight Sparkle

Spike the baby dragon was an NPC and therefore had no sheet.

For those who haven't played Unknown Armies, the mechanics are pretty simple: roll under your score on percentile dice. 01 is a critical success, 00 a critical failure, and doubles are either extra-good or extra-bad depending on success or failure. If something is marked as an obsession skill, then you can flip-flop the roll; this makes a disastrous 91 into an amazing 19.

I houseruled what I call the Cutie Mark Critical: if you roll a 01 or successful double on your obsession skill, or on anything which is related to your Element of Harmony, you get a super-fantastic amazing success that results in such things as Sonic Rainbooms or intimidating a dragon into submission.

The emotional triggers are used mostly for role-playing purposes, although with UA's rules about mental disorders it would be fairly easy to bolt on a system to replicate how Cutie Mark Critical Fumbles can result in emotional breakdowns and ponies going crazy.



Things I learned from last night's My Little Pony RPG:

• A better (read: more entertaining) word for unicorn telekinesis is "Ponykinesis". Please update your lexicons accordingly. 
• When I say "It's quiet... too quiet," a cat will jump out. Of course, in this case it was Nyan Cat because one of the players had opened another tab and didn't realize it would be audible across his microphone. It totally wrecked the tense atmosphere but we all laughed.
• Twilight Sparkle has a morbid sense of humor ("Everypony knows that there's no such thing as a vampony! They're actually mis-identified Chupacabra.") and, in a pinch, is willing to resort to Necromancy. (This was due mostly to Mxyzplk's interpretation of the character which could best be summarized as "Twilight Sparkle by means of H.P. Lovecraft." Strangely, it fit the adventure.)
• Vamponies are attracted to bright colors and sudden movement, and they drain color from whatever they feed upon. 
• Anyone who plays as Pinkie Pie has at least one actual, ready-to-perform song up her sleeve. 
• I do an excellent Diamond Dog impression, even if it's hard on my throat.
• Speaking like GLaDOS is both fun and habit-forming. 
• Even in the midst of nearly certain death, Rarity takes the time to look fabulous, dahling. 
• Sonic Rainbooms are lethal to the undead.

 If I had to do it over again...

• I'd revisit the stats as I think some of them need re-balancing
• Certain skills (like Pinkie Pie's Create Wacky Contraptions) need some sort of "X times per session" limit to them
• I'd find a way to more fully integrate the Element of Harmony into the character as a kind of mechanical benefit -- perhaps when acting according to their Element, they can roll 2 sets of percentile dice and take the better number? Not sure how best to replicate this. 
• I'd record the session because we spent at least half of the 5 hour session howling with laughter.

A good time was had by all, and I suspect this won't be my last time running a game in Equestria. If you'd like to give pony role-playing a try, leave a comment below and I'll see about setting something up.

WNW: My Christmas in Summary

It went almost exactly like this:



First it started on a wrong note. Then things turned sour. Then there was lots of headdesking. And then, finally, it all ended anticlimactically.

I hope your Christmas was much better than mine.

Monday Gunday: Happiness is a Mounted Bayonet

I took my brother to the range with me this past Christmas Eve, which was a nice bonding experience as he and I have such dissimilar tastes and experiences that we have precious little in common. I also gained some richly-deserved respect in his estimation of me, though I'm not certain if it's because his flighty little sister now has a "grown-up" hobby or if it's because I managed to finally beat him at something. Either way, I'm not complaining.

I shot some, he shot some, then I shot some again.
I claim most of the good ones, including the two pasted-over bullseyes.

However, as I was shooting my Mosin I noticed that the muzzle had a tendency to jump and buck. This probably isn't a recent development; I likely didn't notice it until now because up until this point I was still getting used to the recoil. But when the rifle's bipod leaves the shooting bench, though, that's something to take note of and worry about. Not that I think the rifle will break (Ha! I could throw this thing off the roof and the only damage would be to the scope), but because it was messing with my sight picture. I can hit targets at 25 yards with no problem, but at 50 I have to re-seat the rifle into my shoulder each time.

So I talked to my comrades from the Mosin Militia about how to remedy this situation. Fellow blogger Linoge informed me that

Apparently sporterized Mosins have a horrible tendency towards "barrel whip", in that the barrel is absurdly long and narrow when not supported by the wooden stock.  When you fire, there are all kinds of torsional forces at play, and harmonics build up and down the barrel as the bullet twists its way down. 

Barrel whip! This is a marvelous term which perfectly describes what I have been experiencing. But how to fix it? I wanted to avoid the expense of shortening or recrowning the barrel, and I was unable to mount a recommended anti-vibration device because I can't remove the front globe sight. I had heard about muzzle brakes/recoil compensators for the 91/30, but everything I've read about them suggests they are cheaply made junk with a dangerous tendency to fly off downrange after a few rounds.

Linoge's final answer was the solution:  just put the bayonet where it is supposed to be, and I would imagine all your ills will be cured.*

I liked this idea. I've wanted to mount the bayonet for some time, but I was unable to get it more than halfway down the barrel. This prevented me from locking it into place. So I went to fellow Brosin** Doug Parkhurst with my dilemma and asked if there was a way short of a Dremel tool to loosen it up. He replied,

Aye, those things are pretty damn snug - out of my 5, I could only fix the bayonet on 2 of them without some sort of grinding, and one of those 2 was only after about a week or two of persistence. Before resorting to a Dremel, you can try a good scrub with Break-Free CLP and a stiff gun brush. Sometimes just trying it over and over will eventually loosen it to the point where you can get it on and off without tools. But if it's especially stubborn, a Dremel used sparingly on the inside of the socket will work. Try to avoid hitting the spring latch; if you grind off too much of that, it won't lock onto the front sight post. FYI, the teardrop-shaped hole in the wide end of the combo tool in the cleaning kit can be used as a handy wrench to aid in removing it if it gets stuck. Hope this helps!

It did indeed help. If nothing else, this gave me permission to be as rough as necessary. This is one thing I've noticed about my Mosin: at times it practically requires manhandling, which is why I have a rubber mallet in my tool kit for when the bolt is feeling frisky.***

So I went it at with a will, using Break-Free and a bronze brush. That only amused the bayonet, as the brush left little bronze residue everywhere. Then I got serious with some steel wool, which I think maybe removed some of the bluing.

By this point I had lost patience and was ready to introduce power tools to the mix, so I went to Home Depot to look at Dremels. Sadly, they're too expensive for me (the cheapest was $80) but I did find a nice set of medium-coarse files for about $6. Choosing the round file, I sat down in front of the TV with it, the bayonet, and a bottle of CLP, and went at that sucker like it was a marital aid.

A couple of hours later, the bluing had come off and I was looking at the shiny steel underneath. Sure enough, it went down over the barrel, but I couldn't twist it to lock into place. Sure, I could get it to move with application of the rubber mallet, but that would be inconvenient (not to mention conspicuous) at the range. I took the flat file to the sides of the front sight and worked on them until -- FINALLY -- I was able to mount the bayonet.

This is the fruit of my labor. Izzy is now suitable to act as a boar spear, and if I pull the trigger I can make instant bacon.

Long gun is long.

And now I can, in the words of Doug Parkhurt, "twirl gaily through the house with [my] 65" pointy bang stick of doom (but watch out for the ceiling fans)."


* This has to do with the aforementioned barrel harmonics and torsional forces. The short simple answer is that the bayonet acts like a counterweight and the barrel thinks it's a foot longer than it really is.

** A brony who also likes Mosins, naturally.

*** "Yob tvoyu mat! And you'll get more of the same until you decide to work!"

Happy New Year, Everypony!