Random gun crankery.

November 2nd, 2026

Our old friend Jacob at the Widener’s blog sent over a link to a recent post: “Subsonic 300 Blackout Shootout“. Since Jacob is always nice about this, and always offers to send a caliber or two our way, we don’t mind giving him some linky love.

The testing procedures are straightforward. Shoot each commercially available subsonic 300 Blackout round into ballistic gelatin at a distance of 50 yards and 100 yards with a 16″ (1/6 twist) and 10.5″ (1/7 twist) length rifle barrel. At 50 yards, we used the FBI standard fabric protocol in front of the gel blocks. We did this to give each round the best chance of performing/opening at a relatively short distance. At 100 yards, we let the rounds do their thing and go straight into the ballistic gelatin without the fabric barrier.

This is a matter of some interest to me: one of my recent purchases was a used T/C Contender. I bought it mostly for the frame (and feel like I got a good deal on it) but it came with a scoped .300 Blackout barrel. I’m giving serious thought to having that one threaded: it feels like it should be simple and cheap to have a Contender barrel threaded (though they are going to have to remove/replace/boresight the scope). I have not price checked this yet, mostly because I also don’t have a suppressor yet. (This may come as a shock to folks, especially with recent developments. But I only have one gun at the moment that’s threaded, so a suppressor has not been a priority for me.)

Over at the Revolver Guy blog, Mike Wood has written a very nice tribute to Evan Marshall, who passed away in September.

Mr. Marshall was a Detroit PD officer for 20 years. After his retirement, he did a lot of work as an advisor with various companies and organizations. He was pretty famous in the firearms community for his work studying terminal ballistics, and published (with Evan Sanow) three books on “stopping power”.

Mr. Wood includes some excellent quotes from Mr. Marshall, most of which I won’t reproduce here: I’d rather you go over to Revolver Guy, which you should be reading anyway. However, I will share one:

We need to listen to the “still, small voice.” When it speaks, I listen, and each and every time I have, I and those I love have benefited.

Posted in Guns, Obits | No Comments »

Your NFL loser update: week 8, 2026.

November 1st, 2026

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:

Chargers

Next week’s game is against Houston. The worthless Chargers are playing at home. Houston is currently the favorite, but I have utmost confidence in the ability of Houston sports teams to disappoint me.

After that, the worthless Chargers play Baltimore in Baltimore. B’more is also a favorite in that game (which is currently scheduled for Sunday Night Football: we will see if that sticks).

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | No Comments »

Obit watch: October 30, 2026.

October 30th, 2026

Patrick Stewart. Tributes. NYT (share link, may require).

The Los Angeles Times referred to him as an “unknown British Shakespearean actor” in a story announcing his casting. Brent Spiner, who played the android Data on the show, fashioned a sign to go above Stewart’s dressing room that read in bright red, “WARNING: Unknown British Shakespearean Actor.”

Other credits include “Lifeforce”, “L.A. Story”, “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” (the 1979 version: he was “Karla”), and Lynch’s “Dune”. And I had forgotten that he was “Sejanus” in “I, Claudius”: that startled me when I watched it.

Rosalind Ashford, of Martha and the Vandellas.

Next to Diana Ross and the Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas were Motown’s premier female act during the 1960s.
The Supremes were silky smooth, but Martha and the Vandellas had a grittier, more soulful sound, drawing on the counterpoint between Ms. Reeves’s powerhouse alto and Ms. Ashford’s soprano. (The group’s third spot was held by various women over the years, including Lois Reeves, Ms. Reeves’s sister.)

Gary Stephen “Angry” Anderson, frontman for the Australian group Rose Tattoo.

Mr. Anderson, swathed in tattoos, with a cue-ball pate, was the last surviving member of Rose Tattoo, after the deaths of several other members who cycled through the band over the decades. The group, formed in Sydney in the mid-1970s, was an institution among Aussie headbangers, specializing in the down-and-dirty hard rock of their friends in AC/DC, which is considered a national treasure.
The Rose Tattoo sound was “totally aggressive, take no prisoners, spare no one, ‘have no mercy’ type music,” Mr. Anderson said in a 2001 interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “The more out of control we became,” he added, “the bigger crowds we’d pull, and that feeds the beast.”

He also played “Ironbar” in “Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome”.

Mike Beigel. You may not know the name, but you’ve heard his work. He invented the Mu-Tron III.

The Mu-Tron III was the most renowned of several effects pedals — or stomp boxes, as they are also known to guitarists and other musicians — that Mr. Beigel (pronounced “beagle”) invented for Musitronics, a New Jersey-based company that he co-founded in 1972.
The company produced a variety of sought-after pedals, including the Mu-Tron Octave Divider, Phasor, Flanger and Bi-Phase, which have been adopted by notables like Neil Young, Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins and John Frusciante, the Chili Peppers guitarist.
“Effects pedals,” Vintage Guitar magazine observed in 1997, “would probably still be considered novelties instead of serious tools for professional musicians had it not been for the ambitious efforts of the Musitronics company in the ’70s.”
The Mu-Tron III — there was no I or II; Mr. Beigel just liked the Roman numeral III — was also known as the Auto Wah. Considered the first commercial envelope filter pedal, the device allowed guitar players to achieve a synthesizer-like sound, producing a distinctive quack or bark, with a slight underwater feel, as well as mellower swells.
“When it comes to envelope follower effects,” Guitar World magazine observed in 2012, “the Mu-Tron III is the big, pimpin’ mack daddy of them all.”

It depresses me that I can’t share this obit with Andrew. He would have enjoyed talking about effects pedals over sushi.

Posted in 1970s, Movies, Music, Obits, Theatre, TV | No Comments »

Your Friday loser update.

October 30th, 2026

NBA teams that still have a chance to go 0-82:

Brooklyn Nets
Sacramento Kings

Posted in Loser, Sports | No Comments »

Obit watch: October 29, 2026.

October 29th, 2026

Barbara Barrie, actress.

I wonder how many people even remember that Barney Miller had a wife. (Her last appearance, per IMDB, was in season 5. “Barney Miller” ran for eight seasons.)

And this is mentioned in the headline, but for Mike the Musicologist’s benefit: she was the original “Sarah” in Sondheim’s “Company”. And she was a good Texas girl.

Other credits include “The Commish”, “McMillan & Wife” and “Kate & Allie”, and “The Fugitive” (the original).

Peter Medak, director. I’ve never seen “The Changeling”. I have seen “The Ruling Class”, but not in quite a while. I really liked both “The Krays” and “Let Him Have It”.

His career seems to evolved after “Romeo Is Bleeding”. He did a lot of TV work, including six episodes of “Homicide: Life on the Streets” and one episode of “The Wire”. (He also did “Species II“, which only gets a 4.6 on IMDB, but man, that cast.)

Elke Sommer, actress. Other credits include “Ten Little Indians” (the 1974 version), “The Oscar”, “The Love Boat”, “Fantasy Island”, and “The Six Million Dollar Man”.

Posted in 1970s, Movies, Obits, Theatre, TV | 2 Comments »

Texas, we are just not trying hard enough.

October 29th, 2026

Everytown for Gun Safety, a national research and advocacy organization, ranks Idaho 50th in the country for the strength of its gun laws. State law allows most adults to carry concealed firearms without a permit, does not require background checks for gun sales between private individuals and does not require gun owners to secure their weapons when children are present.

Don’t get me wrong, folks. I loved Idaho when I was there, and would move there if my Austin privileges were revoked. But we can’t let them beat us, Texans. At worst, it should be a tie for last place.

The article I’m quoting is tied to an Idaho ballot measure to name a state gun. It is a particularly annoying article, not just because of the above quote.

The six firearms on Idaho’s ballot have looser connections to the state. The Winchester Model 1894 is a popular big-game hunting rifle. The Colt Single Action Army is an enduring symbol of the American frontier, and the M1 Garand was the standard American infantry rifle of World War II.

And the other three? The NYT does not see fit to share that information.

However, Ballotpedia does. The full list, for your enlightenment, education, and entertainment:

  • Winchester Model 1894 (.30-30)
  • Winchester Model 1873 (.44-40)
  • 1873 Colt Single Action Army Revolver (.45 Colt)
  • M1 Garand rifle (.30-06)
  • Colt M1911 .45 automatic Colt pistol (.45 ACP)
  • Remington Model 700 bolt-action rifle (.30-06)

The calibers were specified in the bill that put this measure on the ballot.

Also:

Ballotpedia has not located arguments in support of a particular option for the advisory question. in support of the ballot measure. You can share campaign information or arguments, along with source links for this information, with us at editor@ballotpedia.org.
The North Idaho Republicans PAC endorsed a vote for the 1873 Colt Single Action Army Revolver “Peacemaker” (.45 Colt).

Personally, I think I would abstain from voting if I lived in Idaho. All of these guns are fine (or at least okay) choices, but none of them has enough of a unique Idaho connection for me.

Posted in 1911, Colt, Guns, M1 Garand, Texas, Winchester | No Comments »

Obit watch: October 27, 2026.

October 27th, 2026

Susan Saint James.

Other credits include “Ironside”, “McCloud”, and “WWE: The History of WrestleMania I-IX”.

It looks like you can get “Fame is the Name of the Game” on DVD (in a box set with “Brian’s Song” and something called “A Matter of Wife…and Death”) but “The Name of the Game” series is still not available on video.

Lawrence sent over an obit for Donnie Iris, musician, with the note that “Love is Like a Rock” got a lot of play on MTV in the early days.

Rich sent over an obit for Tetsuo Chiba, manga guy.

Chiba made his commercial magazine debut in 1958 with “Butokai no Shojo.” His most famous work, “Ashita no Joe” (known as “Tomorrow’s Joe” or “Ashita no Joe: Fighting for Tomorrow” in English), began serialization in Weekly Shonen Magazine in 1968. The story follows Joe Yabuki, an orphan from Tokyo’s slums who starts as an underdog in Japan’s boxing world and eventually becomes a world-ranked fighter.
A resonant depiction of social and economic anxieties in postwar Japan, the series became a phenomenon, selling more than 20 million copies. When the character of Joe’s rival, Toru Rikiishi, died in the story, fans attended a real-life funeral held in his honor, demonstrating the series’ significant impact.

Finally, Joe Redner, the “strip club king of Tampa”.

During his 50-year career in adult entertainment, Mr. Redner owned an empire of strip clubs in and around Tampa, a longtime hotbed for both adult entertainment and its culturally conservative critics.

…

But whenever challenged, he stood his ground. If he knew the police were coming, he made sure to be on the premises so he would be arrested alongside his dancers and patrons. (He claimed to have been thrown in jail 150 times.)
He ran his club in shifts, so that when one set of dancers and employees was taken to jail, another moved quickly into place. If the second set was arrested, a third crew was waiting…
Mr. Redner also fought back in court. He paid his dancers’ and patrons’ legal fees, and his business partner was a bail bondsman, which meant his people could move through the system quickly and be back at the club within a few hours.
Though he had dropped out of high school, he spent years studying First Amendment law and worked closely with his longtime lawyer, Luke Lirot, to oppose city ordinances against nude dancing. On the shelves in his office, law journals shared space with back issues of Playboy.

…

“I’m a freedom type of guy,” he told The Daily Beast in 2012. “I think people should do whatever they want as long as they don’t hurt anyone or intrude on anybody else.”

Posted in 1970s, Music, Obits, TV | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: October 26, 2026.

October 26th, 2026

Walter Koenig. NYT (share link, may require). McThag.

Other credits include “Futurama”, “Antony and Cleopatra”, “The Starlost”, “The Questor Tapes”…

…and “Mannix”. (“Delayed Action“, season 1, episode 22. He was “Harry”.)

This is a little old, but: Noah Adams, NPR guy.

Eric Bauza, voice actor. THR.

In the recent film “Coyote vs. Acme,” Mr. Bauza voices Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and other characters. The film imagined the Looney Tunes mainstay Wile E. Coyote taking the Acme Corporation to court for its defective products that had repeatedly thwarted his pursuit of the Road Runner.

Paul Stankard, artist. His specialty was paperweights.

In 1972, with three young children and a newborn at home, Mr. Stankard skipped out on a steady job blowing glass for chemical laboratories. He was in love — with paperweights. The form’s pioneers had filled their weights with stylized glass garlands, pansies and primroses. Not Mr. Stankard, a sprightly, self-taught naturalist. He set out, he told a film crew in 2024, “to invent a new language to interpret native flowers in glass.”
For the next 54 years, over a nearly 5,000-degree gas flame, he melted and joined canes of colored glass into hyper-realistic buttercups and spiderwort. Within three-inch hemispheres, he created spectacular, increasingly intricate natural worlds from glass: root systems, worms, moths and honeybees in flight; kaleidoscopically colored bouquets crammed with foxglove, moss, blueberries and sprites.

…

He blew glasses in his utility room and sold glass animals at craft fairs for a quarter. But nothing enchanted him like paperweights. Magnified by a clear crystal dome, imperfections were impossible to hide — a challenge to which Mr. Stankard thrilled. Paperweights, he told The Palm Beach Post in 1996, “embody my attitudes about Mother Earth and nature. The spherical shape gives me a parameter, and within that, I’m able to create.”
For $10, he sold his first paperweight to an antiques dealer at an Atlantic City craft fair in 1971. By 1975, his weights fetched between $250 and $400, said Alan Kaplan, an antiques dealer who began working with Mr. Stankard that year. In 1989, Mr. Stankard had begun stretching his orbs into prisms that sold for nearly $10,000.

I know I have a tendency to snark on artists sometimes, so let me be clear: I think Mr. Stankard’s work is really, really impressive.

Posted in 1970s, Art, Mannix, Obits, Radio, TV | No Comments »

Your NFL loser update: week 7, 2026 (with bonus firings and NBA losers).

October 25th, 2026

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:

Chargers (bye week)

Jets lose to winless Dolphins at home as season takes embarrassing turn

You. Don’t. Say.

The Dolphins, who entered the game 0-5 and coming off their bye week, represented one of the few teams on the schedule that the Jets figured to have a good chance of defeating.

The worthless Chargers play the Rams next Sunday. While the Rams have been struggling (they were actually a favorite of many to win the Superb Owl this year: they are 2-4 as I write this, and are currently up by a touchdown over the Raiders) they are a heavy favorite to win this game.

In other news: NBA teams that still have a chance to go 0-82:

Brooklyn Nets
New York Knickerbockers
Orlando Magic
Milwaukee Bucks
Miami Heat
New Orleans Pelicans
Golden State Warriors
Sacramento Kings

In other other news, we’re getting to the point in the college football season where the firings begin.

Dave Aranda out as coach of Baylor.

In just over seven seasons, he went 40-40 with the Bears.

Dave Doeren out as head coach of NC State.

Doeren was hired in 2013 and finished with a 98-74 record at N.C. State and 121-78 in his career. The Wolfpack made 11 bowl game appearances during Doeren’s tenure, including five straight from 2014-18.

3-4 overall this season, 1-3 in conference.

…N.C. State was embarrassed in its season opener at Virginia. It fumbled away a victory at Vanderbilt. N.C. State nearly lost to Appalachian State and was blown out at home against Wake Forest. The loss to Stanford — a bad Cardinal team, no less — was the final straw.

Also out: general manager Andy Vaughn and defensive coordinator DJ Eliot.

And Drew Mehringer fired as offensive coordinator for Oregon.

Posted in Firings, Loser, NFL, Sports | No Comments »

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#165 in a series)

October 22nd, 2026

Carmen Turner, the tax assessor-collector of Fort Bend County, Texas, has been indicted on Federal charges of “misusing taxpayer funds” according to the Chron.

I didn’t know we could indict politicians for “misusing taxpayer funds”. If we can do that, why are we not doing more of it?

The allegations stem from an investigation that became public last year after search warrants accused Turner of using county money to pay employees who were caring for her mother. ABC13 reported at the time that payroll records showed the employees received more than $27,000 in county funds over about eight months.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas, the indictments allege that Turner hired employees through her office to care for her mother at her apartment from September 2023 to September 2025, while they were paid as county employees.

…

Turner remains listed as Fort Bend County’s tax assessor-collector, Eberle confirmed, but she, Shemerrylyn Regina Fields and Victor Calvin Ewing are all facing conspiracy and wire fraud charges, including theft involving government programs that recieve federal funding.

Noted:

The indictments also name Turner and two other employees, including Victor Calvin Ewing, the father of Turner’s adult son. Ewing was hired as an emergency coordinator while also working at Chicago O’Hare International Airport.

Posted in Law, Politics, Texas | No Comments »

Obit watch: October 22, 2026.

October 22nd, 2026

Tom Skerritt. NYT (share link, may require).

He was 93, and had a heck of a career. A fair amount of genre stuff, some cop/PI stuff, he was Sheriff Bannerman in Cronenberg’s “The Dead Zone” (which I thought was a pretty good King adaptation), he did four episodes of “The F.B.I.”…

…and he was “Robert W. Palmer” the simply irresistible political candidate who has sold his soul to Satan in “The Devil’s Platform” episode of “Kolchak: The Night Stalker”…

…and yes, he did do a “Mannix”. (“Warning: Live Blueberries“, season 1, episode 7. He was “Morgan Carpenter”.)

Posted in 1970s, Mannix, Movies, Obits, TV | 1 Comment »

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyenas! (#164 in a series)

October 22nd, 2026

Been over a month since we had one of these, and this one is a good one.

Louise Lucas is 82 years old. She’s also a Democratic senator in Virginia.

And she was just indicted, along with two of her daughters and a nephew.

Apparently, the senator is also a drug kingpin.

Prosecutors charged Lucas and six others, including her two daughters, with an alleged racketeering conspiracy involving marijuana distribution, money laundering, honest services fraud through bribery, maintaining drug-involved premises, possession of firearms in furtherance of drug trafficking and wire fraud.

…

According to the indictment unsealed Thursday, Lucas and close-knit group of associates including her family members orchestrated a criminal enterprise with Lucas’ marijuana business. Prosecutors said she approved and directed activities for the enterprise, including arranging for the acquisition and distribution of at least 100 kilograms of marijuana and supervising the laundering of marijuana proceeds.

…

The indictment also charges six others, including Lucas’ daughters Lisa Lucas-Burke and Theresa Lucas-Lamb, and grandson Ryan Eichelberger. It also charges Carlton Upton Jr., a former business partner of Lucas’, along with Prince Albert William Hudson III and Tameka Johnson. Neither Lucas nor Lucas-Burke could be immediately reached for comment Thursday morning.
Lucas has been in office since 1992. She’s made no secret of her status as a “grandma who legalized pot and now has her own cannabis store,” and she’s been known to sample her own supply.

What’s the rule? “Don’t get high on your own supply.”

The Virginian-Pilot repeats a claim that this is Republican retaliation for her redistricting attempts (among other things) but also suggests she hasn’t made any friends on either side of the divide:

Earlier this year, state budget negotiations ground to a standstill as Lucas refused to budge on the question of whether data centers should be subject to the state’s sales and use tax. She publicly criticized fellow Democrats Gov. Abigail Spanberger and House Speaker Don Scott, who were skeptical of what they said would be going back on deals with businesses. The state teetered on the verge of a government shutdown before Lucas agreed to a down-to-the-wire deal that included a $1.2 billion data center consumption tax to be levied over two years.

NYTimes (share link, may require).

National Review (hattip: Lawrence.)

Posted in Law, Politics | 1 Comment »

Your Friday loser update on Thursday.

October 22nd, 2026

NBA teams that still have a chance to go 0-82:

Cleveland Cavaliers
Brooklyn Nets
New York Knickerbockers
Orlando Magic
Boston Celtics
Milwaukee Bucks
Miami Heat
Chicago Bulls
Denver Nuggets
New Orleans Pelicans
San Antonio Spurs
Dallas Mavericks
Utah Jazz
Golden State Warriors
Sacramento Kings
Phoenix Suns

Posted in Loser, Sports | No Comments »

Breaking news! Must credit…somebody?

October 21st, 2026

I got this from Mike the Musicologist, who got it from Twitter. For some reason, though, I can’t open tweets: I get a “something went wrong” message.

Anyway: Smith and Wesson is buying Savage Arms.

I’m not sure how I should react to this. I own exactly one Savage gun (my first Scout Rifle). I haven’t bought any other Savage rifles, but I’ve handled some at gun stores, and they felt like good products at a fair price.

Savage got back into the handgun market a few years back (they were big in the early part of the 20th century), but I kind of felt like their handguns were mostly “me too” products.

I’m speculating here, but my theory is: S&W will probably drop the handgun line, and keep the long gun line. S&W doesn’t currently have any bolt guns in their lineup (they imported bolt-action rifles from Husqvarna in the late 1960s – early 1970s, from Howa in the 1980s, and made the “i-Bolt” after purchasing Thompson Center), and only one shotgun. I think Savage’s long guns will fill a market gap for S&W.

Savage’s annual net sales hit roughly $160 million, with a skilled workforce of approximately 500 employees. Both companies already use the same dealers, distributors, and big-box retailers, a fact that should help both American-made brands maintain a relatively streamlined delivery process for customers.

I haven’t had much time to think deeper about this, so I may have more thoughts later.

Edited to add: more coverage from “Shooting News Weekly”.

Edited to add: McThag thinks of something I did not: could this lead to a return of the legendary Savage 99?

Coverage from American Rifleman.

Posted in Guns, Smith and Wesson | No Comments »

Obit watch: October 21, 2026.

October 21st, 2026

Richard Riehle, actor. Other credits include several spinoffs of a minor SF TV series from the 1960s, “The Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulhu”, and “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”.

Matt Howarth, indie comics guy. I haven’t seen a mainstream obit for him, but Michael Swanwick posted a nice tribute yesterday. Mr. Swanwick also linked to an obit at “Bleeding Cool”. And Lawrence posted his own tribute.

I was a fan of “Savage Henry” and “Those Annoying Post Brothers” back when I was still buying indie comics. But, like Lawrence, I eventually got out of that and lost track of what Mr. Howarth was doing. I hope whatever it was, he was happy doing it.

Posted in Movies, Obits | No Comments »

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