At one time, I was a member of the NRA. My mentor gave me that membership. The legislative announcements we received were useful.

We submitted testimony three times, I spoke before the Maryland Senate committee that was looking at infringement bills. Every time, it was the NRA that gave us the heads-up. It was the NRA there, fighting for our rights.

In those committee hearings, there were always a dozen or more anti-gun groups and exactly one pro-Second Amendment group.

We look and see the NRA is missing in the current court battles. They were there. They still are.

Consider the name of this group, “The New York State Rifle and Pistol Association”. You might remember them from such hits as “New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York” and “New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, Superintendent of New York State Police, Et Al.”.

Let me quote you a little something from their web page: We are a not-for-profit 501(c)4 organization and the official NRA-affiliated State Association in New York..

That’s correct, that was the NRA working for many years to help get our win in Bruen

Today, the NRA is a shell of its former self. I know people who maintain their memberships because they just do. I send my money to other groups, groups who I see in court battles time and time again.

Please pray that the NRA can recover from its nose dive to become a powerhouse in the support of the Second Amendment again.

I am a “hobby” machinist. I’ve read some books, I’ve watched 1000s of YouTube videos. I’ve even been in the shop and made things. But I’m still a hobby grade machinist.

Occasionally, there are things that you just don’t know you don’t know.

The bible for machinists is the Machinery’s Handbook. It contains maths, it contains formulas, it contains specifications, it contains just about any knowledge you might need to machine something.

I’ve looked at the section on bearings, and it didn’t click.

Then one of you sent me some feedback on the Casinator. It was obvious from the outset that they knew what they were talking about. They rattled off specifications and bearing identifiers without issue. I had to spend some time looking things up.

One of the things that we deal with is attaching things to one another. You can glue things together with molten metal, but that has its issues. You can attach things with bolts and other fasteners. You can also shove something into a hole that is too small for it with enough force that it goes in and stays in place.

That last thing is called a “press fit”. Assume you have a 1/4in hole, and you want to press a 1/4in shaft into that hole and have it stick. If the hole is 0.2500 and the shaft is 0.2490, the shaft clears the hole. As long as the shaft doesn’t expand or the hole shrinks from heat, everything is fine.

But we want it to stick. We can either make the hole smaller or the shaft bigger. The Machinery’s Handbook will guide you to the correct values.

Bearings are designed to be held in place. One of the most common methods is a press fit. For the types of bearings I’m using, this means that when the bearing is pressed onto the shaft, it stays. When the bearing is pressed into the faceplate, it stays.

The amount of interference is based on many factors, some of those factors are known only to the manufacturer of the bearings.

Thus, “nominal”. With the R4ZZ bearings I am using, they are nominally 5/8 OD and 1/4 ID.

They are not 0.6250 and 0.2500. The OD is large, and the ID is smaller. The interference fit is built into the bearing design.

My job is to hit the proper sizes when I machine the pockets and shafts. That is to say, my pockets must be 0.6250 within the given tolerances, and the shaft must be 0.250 within the given tolerances.

No maths for me! Just hit my numbers.

Thank you!

TCK, one of the responders on my post about Democratic Candidates for President, made this comment:

The only thing Trump did wrong was not marching soulless inhuman demonrat filth into mass graves where it belongs.

My response was a simple, “Not cool.” I felt that anything I had said in response would put me in danger of being seen as “the dick” that we mostly try to avoid. I want to talk about why this comment bothers me so much.

My kneejerk response was of this:

There are lots of ways for us to express ourselves. Some I find distasteful, and I just walk away. You guys like to swear a lot more than I do, and use invectives that I think are inappropriate. They do not, however, come even close to the line of, “Don’t be a dick.” Whether TCK intended it or not, the words they used immediately brought images to mind of people being marched into mass graves… or into ovens. With current political climes being what they are, the thought seized my brain. Hence, not cool. So very not cool.

But WHY is it not cool? Why isn’t that statement one I just walk away from, like so many others? After all, I didn’t even flinch over “demorats,” which is something that normally makes me cringe (as you regulars know so well). It’s because I have come to love this place. I talk here about things I can’t talk about anywhere else. I learn from you, and I get the impression that you all learn from me, even when (or perhaps especially when) we disagree.

I worry that this type of comment, quoted in a public forum elsewhere, is enough to get GFZ tossed on the burn pile, banned on places like Google, and avoided even by good quality Right folk. The implication of killing off the competition, the innuendo that leads one to think of concentration camps and death to everything Not Us, is a big deal in the States right now. I will be very honest, and say that I really don’t want to be associated with a site that doesn’t find that kind of implication offensive.

It’s a random comment, probably made off the cuff. I doubt TCK intended to give the impression that they wanted to actually murder anyone not of their belief. But I don’t KNOW. Their follow up response didn’t make it any more clear, to me at least. And so I’m left wondering. Is TCK actually suggesting that we should commit genocide against people who don’t agree with the Right? Are they saying that we should kill those who label themselves Left or Democrat? Or was it a figure of speech, done to evoke an emotional response?

Why does it matter? For some who come to this site, it really doesn’t. This is one of a handful of places you visit, and what people on the outside think doesn’t matter at all. While I don’t care if people think I’m posting to an alt-right site (hell, maybe I am… the definition is so shifty that one can barely tell), I DO care if people think I’m posting to a pro-Nazi site, or a place that advocates for unnecessary violence against any who disagree with a political view.

I don’t even care so much for myself, per se. I care because it’s the kind of thing that gets you banned in so many other places. I do go to FB and TikTok and Instagram and those other sites, for a variety of reasons. I sometimes carry out messages and quotes from GFZ because they are so insightful that I feel like they must be shared (with proper attribution of course). If I can’t do that, if this becomes another insular community with no ability to interact with the rest of the internet, then it loses so much of what makes it special.

Does this mean I think we need to cowtow to the public? Not entirely. I try not to get my panties in a wad over too much. The few times I’ve had issues, I’ve walked away. Until this one. This one I brought up to AWA because I thought it had gone over the line, and I was looking for guidance. What he said is between he and I, but he suggested I write about it, and so I have.

I don’t want to kill those who don’t believe as I do. I don’t want to associate with those who do believe that. I don’t want to censure those who believe differently. I want, in fact, to learn from people of differing beliefs. It’s the only way for me to grow. When I talk to most of you, I feel a door is opened. I may or may not like what’s on the other side, but it’s an open door, and you graciously allow me to learn from you. TCK slammed a door in my face, figuratively speaking, and denied me (or anyone else) a view of what lay beyond. What was left was … well, the picture I posted above, quite frankly. An open door would have been much better, because it would have left space for questioning, for learning, for expanding knowledge. Now, though, I’m left muttering to myself.

It’s the kind of commentary that makes me want to walk away. That puts me in a crap position, because I really don’t WANT to walk away. But I find myself questioning whether it’s safe. If that makes any sense. sigh

Hagar the Frustrated

Thank you, everybody who has given me feed back on the reloading series and on my dreams of building the Casinater.

The court cases are starting to ramp up, I’ll be digging into those a bit more as progress happens.

My wife told me that when she sees an article with countless words and numerous quotes, she has to put extra time aside to read them. That reading the quotes is particularly difficult.

I’ve added some new formatting capabilities. I’m going to start highlighting important parts of quotes. I need those quotes because I want context to be available to you. I want the highlighting so that it is easier for you to follow what I consider to be significant.

The comments are open, please let us know what we are doing right and what we need to improve.

Thanks again.

I have all the raw materials in hand, as well as the motor and power supply. The 5 mm drive belt material is somewhere in the reloading supplies. It is the material I used to make a replacement belt for the wet tumbler when the original, 20-year-old belt broke.

Is this a commercial design? No. The front drive belt is there to provide a built-in safety. It will slip if there is too much drag on the system. In a finished product, I would be mounting the motor differently, behind the front plate.

In the same way, the idler shoulder bolt would be a blind hole instead of a through hole.

Finally, it is likely that a better design would use belts for driving everything instead of gears and belts.

Here’s a peek at the rear.

As soon as I get working drawings out of FreeCAD, I’ll go into the shop and make the faceplate and mount up the motor.

The next step will be to press the bearings into the faceplate. Then I’ll make the drive pulley, the cutter/driven pulley, and the three toolholders.

The last step is making the gears. I’ll be cutting a longish piece of Delrin with 22 tooth gears. That long gear will then be cut into 4 actual gears to use. The final task will be the 14 tooth idler gear and the shoulder bolt.

Exciting times.

I guess the Big Gulp and the party size bag of Cheetos are off camera.

The Seventh Circuit court ignored the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bruen and decided that Illinois did nothing wrong when they held their Bruen tantrum to bass PICA.

The case got dumped back in Judge McGlynn’s lap. The plaintiffs filed motions for things to help The People.

Judge McGlynn denied them, but in writing that denial he took issue with the Seventh Circuit court. This is the same as publicly stating, “The boss told me to fill your home with concrete. I have to do it. They are wrong for all these reasons …”.

But in the meantime, the state has continued their quest to deny Second Amendment protected rights to The People of Illinois.

On December 22, 2023, the state told the court: Our attorney is super-duper busy. She’s scheduled herself out of the office from December 26 through January 9. And she’s so busy, she has other cases with deadlines, there are three holidays, she just can’t do it.

Yesterday, Judge McGlynn said, “NO. You WILL have the scheduled reply by the 19th of January.”

From following these cases, I believe that the normal scheduling is about a month, with replies due 3 weeks after and responses do a week after the reply. It feels like Judge McGlynn is going to keep the state on a short leash.