Archive for May 2nd, 2020

Not part of the main jail feed…

Saturday, May 2nd, 2020

A couple of things I wanted to make note of, but didn’t want to put in the main video feed:

Great and good FoTB (and official firearms trainer of WCD) Karl Rehn did a really cool short video targeted at newer shooters explaining ammunition (and the various types thereof):

This was done for the Polite Society Podcast, which does, of course, have a YouTube channel.

It’s also worth pointing out that Karl has his own channel as well.

Ryan Cleckner, author of the excellent Long Range Shooting Handbook: Complete Beginner’s Guide to Long Range Shooting, has a playlist on the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) channel devoted to long range shooting. This is something I’ve wanted to work on for a while, and I’m hoping once things get back to normal I’ll be able to pursue that.

Also on the NSSF channel: Bryan Litz, author of Applied Ballistics For Long-Range Shooting 3rd Edition and other related works. I got my copy of Applied earlier this week, but haven’t had a chance to crack it yet.

(I should note that any Amazon links here are affiliate links, and I do get a small kickback if you purchase something through those links. I use those small kickbacks for good, not evil, though others might differ with that assessment.)

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“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 33

Saturday, May 2nd, 2020

There is a delightful book that came out in 2014, and which was adapted into a Netflix series. Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War is about John Ford, George Stevens, John Huston, William Wyler, and Frank Capra, and their WWII experiences making films for the military. I enthusiastically recommend this book, which is available for a very reasonable price on Amazon in a Kindle edition and used.

I’ve wanted to watch pretty much all of the wartime films Mark Harris talks about in that book, and I’m happy to report that some of them are available on YouTube in very decent quality.

“Thunderbolt” was made in 1944, but wasn’t released until 1947. Harris goes into the reasons for this in detail, but it basically amounted to: the war ended before the film was edited. William Wyler was, shall we say, distracted during the post-production: he’d suffered a total loss of hearing during a B-25 flight (in an attempt to “film more ‘atmosphere shots.'” for the movie.) He did eventually recover part of his hearing, and continued working as a director until 1970 with the help of hearing aids.

I would be negligent if I didn’t mention that, before “Thunderbolt”, Wyler directed what may have been the most famous WWII propaganda film: “The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress“. Especially since tonight is “12 O’Clock High” night. (Hi, RoadRich! Miss seeing you!)

Tomorrow: Science Sunday!

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