Unless you have a decent gun store heavy on the reloading stuff, you probably depend of online merchants for your brass cleaning supplies. Cleaning media and polish is not that expensive, but when you add shipping and handling plus wait time, it gets to be somewhat silly. A friend gave me a great tip for cleaning media: Lizard Bedding.  It comes in different sizes but the biggest one is 10lbs costing $12.99 at PetSmart. Compare that to Frankford Arsenal Brass Cleaning Media Treated Walnut Hull 7 lb Bag at $13.79 or the 15 lbs bag for $22.99. As for polishing, you can use Frankford Arsenal Brass Case Polish 8 oz Liquid for $7.79 or splurge all of $3.00 for the same amount of good old Brasso bought at WalMart.

A spoonful of Brasso per tumbler load will suffice. do pour on the media and let it mix for 4-5 minutes before adding brass.

The three on the right were treated with the bedding+brasso combo and the ones on the left with bedding only. Sorry about the flash wash, but I think the difference is still visible.

Via NRA-ILA we find about armed citizens in Ashtabula County, Ohio captured an armed criminal. That on itself is newsworthy and congrats to the citizens of Ashtabula for keeping themselves safe. The County was deprived of their normal LEO numbers of five vehicles to two when the County Commissioners cut down on the budget. funding and this two cars are supposed to cover a total area of 1,368 square miles. Of course we heard from the Sheriff and the standard “leave this for the professionals” speech but reality is a very different bag of cats and there is no way that 102,728 people, 39,397 households, and 27,774 families can depend on two cars to keep them safe.

In the comment section of the original link above, the praise and support for the “posse” makes the majority of the entries. Of course we have the whining bunch afraid of armed citizens defensing themselves. How come they are not afraid of the damned criminals intent on doing their nasties on them is still something I can’t quite comprehend. Here are some of the comments:

Mac
Mentor, OH
This is just hilljack justice at its worst. People like Kusar and his band of thugs are the reason we moved out of Ashtabula county. Let the professionals do their job.

This individual stop doing any kind of thinking after reading the word “posse.” He was told by another contributor that there are not enough professionals to do the job but it still shows the kind of numb-mind that populates our country.

llamamamma
Oslo, Norway
This is rather scary. Has it become common, to wander armed in large groups or is this a regional thing?

Scary only if you are a criminal.

Wait a second
North Olmsted, OH
Thankfully, this story had a “good” ending. But what if it hadn’t? Encouraging people to tote guns and engage in vigilante justice is just asking for somebody to get killed.

Nobody engaged in vigilante nothing but that is lost on this individual. The armed criminal (again, armed) was apprehended. Did I say ARMED? How do you engage armed criminals? With 911 and a can of wishful thinking?

It is good to see that we are recovering some backbone and testicular fortitude in this country. Good for the people of Ashtabula County.

After East St. Louis Mayor Alvin Parks announced that the city will layoff 19 police officers, the human waste hit the cooling apparatus. Mostly a budget thing between cops and the city council, the populace of east St. Louis are pretty much left to their own devices crime-wise because there were not that many officer to begin with and after the cuts, certain sections of the city will be covered with one single officer per shift.

In the meantime, the Illinois legislature keeps ignoring SCOTUS decision of McDonald v. Chicago while reichmaster Daley prepares the script to avoid citizens legally obtain gun. This script will be written in blood partially obtained by the victims of crime in East St. Louis.

PS: Why doesn’t the Chicago City Council use all the bodyguards assigned to reichmaster Daley and their weapons to cover the gap in police protection of East St. Louis? I am sure the Major wouldn’t mind.

Is there some sort of sick gunsmith with a Bedazzler in Mexico? For the love of John Moses Browning, these people deserve to suffer slowly and die painfully…maybe by using the Bedazzler to their gonads. Click here for the rest of the painful pictures.

Hat Tip to GunPundit.

The last couple of months I have been engaged in doing some paperwork that led me to the consulates of three countries. I would love to inform that in this era of enhanced terrorism alerts, the security would be airtight since they insist you must come to their grounds totally disarmed but you would be disappointed. I understand that Miami is not a hotbed for terrorism, but maybe because of that it makes for a more inviting target, specially when one of the consulates I visited was a past target of terrorism by at least two different groups.

The first consulate was an accidental test. As told, no weapons of any kind were allowed and I thought I followed the instructions but I did not and not on purpose. A local Rent-A-Cop was at the door and ordered me to drop all metal objects on a basket before going through the metal detector. Keys, change, pen cell phone (turned off of course), Surefire 6P and my American Snipers steel bracelet were put aside and I walked through the magnetometer which, of course, beeped.  I started doing the patting-myself dance and I realized that I had my Boker Subcom Wharcom on my back pocket. I kept doing the pocket patting and the Rent-A-Cop pointed at my midsection and asked me if my belt buckle was metal (I wear a The Wilderness Instructor belt every day) I said yes and he waved me in! No second go around through the detector, no waving me with the magic wand,just come right in.

The second was the first official test. Again no firearms but this time I had two knives with me: An old Swiss army knife and a folding with a 4 inch blade. I also had my Leatherman which has a blade of its own so you could say I had 3 blades. This Rent-A-Cop was pretty much the same even if it was from a different company. I had left my American Snipers steel bracelet on my wrist so it would be detected and create a misdirection: It worked beautifully. I showed it to the Rent-A-Cop, he nodded and let me in without any further checks.

The last consulate was even easier. The Rent-A-Cop was so enthralled that I would walk around in the daylight with a flashlight in my pocket that he ignored beeps and alarms emanating from my person while he fondled it and listened to my explanation that buildings tend to be very dark places if the power goes out during the day. For this trip and knowing that this country had been the victim of terrorism for over half my lifetime, I chosen to carry only the Boker again in my back pocket. I thought this place would be a much tougher nut to crack, but it happened to be way to darn easy. As a matter of fact I was carrying one of those leather legal size pad holder that are very cushy and I could have smuggled a small semi auto with several magazines inside because Rent-A-Cop didn’t even check it.

All three consulate’s floor plans are designed for one-entrance-one-exit-both-side-by-side which allows for no escape whatsoever unless you are inside the inner sanctum. But if you are in the public common area and a gunman appears at the door, you are plum empty of fecal material because you will be sprayed in a perfect killing zone. Barrel Meet Fish. Internationals Gun Free Zones are no fun either.

The worst part? I have to go back to the damned places.