I remembered an old story about my daughter from many years ago. She had drawn a picture that I thought was really good. I suggested we send it to gramma. She placed the picture in the flat bed scanner and I scanned it with her watching the light move from side to side. I emailed the picture to my mom and went on with life. about an hour later daughter came thru the computer room and picked up the lid on the scanner and said "oh look gramma sent it back already".

How to spot fake silver coins.

The Chicago Mercentile Exchange pulled a trick to suppress the price of silver a few weeks ago. They increased margin requirements and forced a lot of small fish who'd bought silver on margin to pay up. Since most players couldn't cover the margin call, they were forced to cash out. This sudden glut of silver on the market suppressed prices. But it was only temporary. The price is back up to $90.47/oz now. All they did was delay reality by pulling the rug from under a few players.

The next few posts will be about pistols.

If you want to mount a reflex (holographic) sight on your pistol, you need to get the slide machined to hold it. Ahhh but glock sells newer pistols in the MOS (Modular Optic System) with a recess already machined. The problem is that they created their own standard and you need an adapter plate to convert the Glock recess to fit your sight... so they sell an adapter plate for Docter, RMR and RMSc. To me this is ridiculous because it's just more parts to move around or vibrate loose.

For reference, here are the dimensions of the different mounts.

RMR seems to be the most prevalent and fits full sized handguns. The RMSc is slightly narrower for compact handguns like the G43x which has a 22mm wide slide. Keep in mind that if the sight is too wide, it may snag on clothing when you draw to fire.

I just purchased a dove tail RMR slide adapter and wasn't expecting much of it. as it turns out, the dovetail socket in the full size glock seems to be tapered in the center (should I say "bowed"). You remove the rear sight with a punch and a hammer and then drive this adapter plate in. I had expected it would slide in and then get locked in place by the set screws. Not so. it is really really snug and the set screws seem superfluous. I managed to get it within 0.010" centered as measured with my dial indicator.

Here's a guy creating the g-code file for his CNC that will machine AROUND the pins and leave the original slide material as the pins.

More gun stuff.... very often when looking at scopes we hear terms like MOA or MILDOT. What are these?

We all know that a circle can be divided into 360 degrees. But each degree can be subdivided into 60 minutes... and each minute can be further divided into seconds. When you hear GPS locations in Degrees Minutes Seconds, these are exacty these units... in the case of the earth, a degree is about 60 nautical miles, and minute of angle is 1 nautical mile (or 6076ft 1.15 statue miles). But when we scale this down to the distances we shoot at , a Minute of Angle (1/60th of a degree is nearly exactly 1inch at 100yards.

So when you hear a gun guy say he's got a gun that shoots a a 3moa group, that means he can put 3 shots inside a 3 inch circle. When we zero a scope, you will see the windage (left right) and elevation (up down) adjustments are in 1/4moa clicks. That means that turning the elevation 1 click will move the bullet's impact point 1/4" at 100 yards. If you get really down into the weeds, you'll soon realize that a MOA isn't exactly 1 inch. that would be far too convenient. It's actually 1.047" at 100 yards.... So in guns we use the SMOA (shooter's MOA) where the MOA has been nudged a tiny bit to be 1 inch.

When you look through a scope, you may see normal cross hairs or you may see cross hairs with dots on them. Those dots are MILDOT... yes they are metric. The actual measurement is called a milliradian MILRAD. Each of those dots is supposed to represent 10cm at 100meters.... 10cm is about 3.9" and 100 meters is 109yards.... so one mildot at 100yards is 3.6".

Scopes have the cross hairs (reticle) as a first or 2nd focal plane. The vast majority of scopes that have a zoom lens are 2nd focal plane. The cross hairs stay the same size and the image gets bigger or smaller. There's only one zoom factor that makes those midots 3.6" apart.... usually 9x. To make it easier to figure out, many manufacturers put a white dot on the zoom ring to show the calibrated point for hte mildots. More expensive scopes are first focal plane. In these scopes the image and the reticle zoom together. For these it does not matter how zoomed in you are, the mildots always show 3.6".

So here's the crazy part.... here in America we can buy a scope that uses MILDOT crosshairs and MOA windage and elevation. It would be like having a car speedometer that reads in MPH and the odometer reading in km. It is something that hte industry needs to fix. I've got a few >$1000 scopes that have windage and elevation in 1/10 MILRAD. This actually makes zeroing the rifle VERY easy.

Not sure if there are comparables in other states, but in Anderson SC there is some sort of farmers coop that sells bags of non gmo etc wheat etc. CHEAP.

https://www.scfbgrainelevator.com/grain

Leupold Delta Point Micro - The Smallest Handgun Red Dot in World?

This is the Leupold Deltapoint Micro. A new micro handgun red dot by Leupold.

I know what you're thinking because I thought the same thing the first time I saw the Delta Point Micro, "How the hell am I supposed to see anything through that little window?

Then I shot with it and realized that what it is lacking in window size, is compensated for in its Low height to bore.

The Delta Point Micro sits really low on the slide and not just compared to other red dots but in general, it essentially mimics the same sight plane as iron sights.

So instead of adjusting to try and find the dot, just shoot it as if you were trying to use iron sights and the red dot just falls into place.

Usually, this is the part where I saw there is a bit of a learning curve, but if you're used to shooting iron sights, there really isn't a learning curve per say, just shoot it like big...