5/21/13

There is an amusing “Demotivational Poster” thingy floating around here at the railroad.  It is a “What people think I do as a railroader” thing.  I've sent it to Spiderman and hopefully y'all can see it.  It makes me giggle every time.  Anyhoo, back to the tale of the weekend.  Saturday, after shoosting the 7.62x39 Saiga Bullpup, I went home and cleaned it.  I noticed that the power had gone off at the house sometime during the day which meant my TV had come on when the power did.  Mom apparently had turned it off though so it hadn’t been sitting there burning the lamp with no image.  When I went to watch TV later though, it would not come on and stay on.  Oh, I could HEAR what was going on, but there was no picture.  I was pissed.  I shut the thing down, grabbed my Best Buy credit card, and asked mom if she wanted to go with me to buy a TV.  She did not.  I took off.  I looked at the 50, 55, and 60 inch models on display then saw a 70 inch unit!  A sales monkey approached and asked for what I was looking.  “Well,” I says, “I WAS looking for a 60 inch until I saw the 70.”  He showed me a couple but they were all more than I wanted to pay.  Mom called just then to say she got the TV working.  I grumbled something to her and went ahead and bought a 60” Visio.  When they said the earliest delivery date was Monday, I asked if I could pick it up myself.  I could.  I texted John to see if he would be available to help me get the old TV off the stand and the new one up.  He was.  I headed back to the house to get Fifi.  Mom gave me her usual passive-aggressive trip about the situation but I persevered.  I arranged with John to meet at my house at 1910 h or so and headed back to BB.  All the way there I fought with myself over the thing.  Finally I decided that I'd call John when I arrived and if he had NOT left for my house yet, I would cancel the deal and NOT get a new TV.  He had not so I did just that.  With $1,289.47 returned to my credit card, I trundled on home.  I told mom, to her great relief, “I cancelled the deal.  When this one dies… I guess I'll just read or something.”  It has continued to work thus far so… I don’t know.  We’ll see.  Sunday I decided to take the 12 gauge Saiga Bullpup to the range and see how well it worked.  I went on line to see about a few different locations.  First I checked with Alpine in Kennedale.  They said they allowed buckshot and slugs on their 50 yard line and that they were open from 0800 h to 1900 h on Sunday.  Then I checked with Quail Creek and found similar information.  I sent Larry a text asking if he were interested in going to QC with me.  I then waited to hear back from him while also waiting to go to lunch with mom.  Mom and I went to Genghis Grille and dined magnificently.  When I got home, I took a nap, ostensibly to continue waiting for Larry’s answer.  When I didn’t hear from him by 1600 h, I took off to Alpine.  I checked with the office and was told to ask the range officer if he was ok with me shoosting buckshot.  He was so I went back and paid for a lane.  I walked up just as he made the line “Cold” and took my target out to the backstop.  Yeah, fiddy yards is a long way… especially with a shotgun.  Well, since I was only concerned with functionality, I didn’t really care if I got any shot on paper.  I loaded up the four five round magazines and waited for the line to be made “Hot.”  When it was, I lined up for my first shot.  It went off nicely but the shell “stove-piped” on me.  I cleared the jam and tried again.  After the first magazine, all “stove-pipes” I might add, I tried to adjust the gas port.  I turned it in thinking that would increase the pressure to the operating piston.  All “stove-pipes” again.  I turned it out thinking I had gone the wrong way.  The first round fired and felt different from all the rest.  I looked and the gun was in battery!  “Huzzah!” I thought, “I got it right finally!”  Yeah, not so much.  It didn’t “stove-pipe” because it didn’t extract the shell from the chamber far enough to jam.  When I pulled the trigger it went “Click!”  I was a tad annoyed.  I messed with it for about sixty rounds but it never cycled properly.  Finally I gave up, packed up the weapon, and left.  I sent Larry another text saying, “Saiga 12: worthless piece of shit!”  I almost took it into the store to see what they would offer on the damned thing!  I didn’t though, but I swore to myself that I would be taking it to the gun show this weekend to see if the Russian would be willing to “tune it up” for me.  Monday, when I told Larry the story, he said for $75.00 the Russian would tune them up.  I'm trying to convince him to bring his this weekend.  I finger if we sent them to be tuned up, we could make a road trip to Houston to pick them up and probably get to shoot them on the Russian’s test range.  I intend to ask if that would be possible.  Well, that’s about all I have to say for today.  So…