6/12/2012

Ok, remember last week when I went to the dentist for a toothache?  Well, I went back this morning for the follow-up.  Yeah, he wanted to pull that tooth after all.  I fingered he was going to, what with all the wiggling the thing was doing in there.  So I'm sitting here with a throbbing jaw now that the Novocain, or whatever they use these days, has worn off.  I'm probably not going to stay much longer at work either.  Also, when I got home last night, my cat had knocked the front cover off of my TV and pulled a wire loose.  I couldn’t get it hooked back up so now I'm a virtual hipster.  You know, the “Oh, I don’t have a TV,” sort of thing.  Anyhoo, I was all ready to go to Best Buy and get a flat screen, and go that much deeper into debt, but mom called a TV repair place who was willing to come look at it.  I gotta find the loose wire again since it got tossed behind the set when I was pissed off about the thing not working.  But back to the weekend.  I mentioned yesterday that I had all of those stripper clips which I wouldn’t be able to use unless I bought an SKS rifle.  Well, Saturday evening I headed out to check Bloodbath & Beyond and Cabela’s to see if either of them had one.  BB&B was closed and Cabela’s didn’t have one.  I hung my head and went back home.  Sunday morning I decided to try BB&B again.  They also didn’t have one.  I refrained from buying anything and headed to the shop with the Saiga 12 again.  I wanted to see if I could make the cleaning rod I'd built more secure to the gun.  This would involve welding.  My welding helmet was broken.  I stopped at Lowe’s on the way to the shop.  There I picked out a new helmet and saw that they also had replacement filter glass.  I bought one of them as well.  Now I have two welding helmets at the shop.  I ground off the nut I'd welded to the cleaning rod last week and zooked on one with an integral washer.  Then I marked where that washer rested against the flash hider on the gun when stowed and made a groove with the hack saw.  I reinstalled the flash hider and tried the rod in its stowed position.  The washer clicks into place and holds the rod nice and secure.  Me rikee rots.  When I was done with my amateur gunsmithery, I had another look at Lil' Wiggly.  I noticed that pistons two and four had made intimate contact with their intake valves at some point.  Number one had also but I didn’t notice it on first inspection.  I told John about it and he suggested we check for bent valves.  I set the head so that the ports were pointing straight up and filled them with water.  They held nicely… well, the intakes did.  Number one, two, and three zorst valves “wept” a tiny bit.  Number three was the worst but I think they will probably lap in.  I hope.  After watching that for a while, I decided I was done at the shop and headed home… the long way.  After making the huge loop and coming back into civilization on White Settlement Road, I decided to keep going on to Cherry Lane and see if Academy might have an SKS.  I didn’t really hold out much hope for it but would have kicked myself for not trying.  They didn’t.  What they DID have was a Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol for $299.00!  I told John about it after I got home and we agreed it was a very tempting thing.  I took a nap and thought about it.  Now, as a bit of history, at the last gun show I saw some no-name 9mm pistols which really intrigued me.  They were $239.00 for a DAO, and $279.00 for a gun with a safety.  The S&W was only $20.00 more and it would accept +P ammo!  I got back in Fiona and went back to Academy.  I bought the gun and brought it home.  I haven’t had a chance to shoost it yet, but all the reviews on them intergooglewebs were positive.  Ok, not ALL the reviews were positive, but the general consensus is “the gun WILL ‘stovepipe’ if you limp-wrist it.”  I just gotta remember to hang the fuck on to the thing.  So, how does this affect my superfluous stripper clip situation?  Well, it doesn’t.  I'm going to shop for an SKS at the next gun show, probably, and failing that, I'll try to pawn off the clips on one of the magazine dealers… or something.  So, there’s all of THAT going on.