The merchants who are buying jewelry will likely buy it at a price below the market rate, possibly melt and purify it, and then sell it at the market rate for a profit, especially if the market rate increases while they’re holding onto it. The merchants who are selling gold coins are on the other end of the supply chain, taking that purified gold and making coins to sell with a face value above the market rate; many of them also sell coins minted by the US government (among others) which command a higher premium than the merchant-minted coins. Silver is given a similar treatment, but there is less demand for silver jewelry since the production cost of silver (mining it from the ground) is significantly lower per ounce – the current gold and silver prices are set at roughly a 60:1 ratio. The demand for gold coins drives the demand for jewelry and other raw gold (industrial uses for gold aren’t really shifting much), but what drives the demand for gold and silver coins?

The most common reason for hoarding gold, silver, or any durable commodity is to stave off the effects of inflation on liquid assets such as cash, bonds, or stocks – any financial instrument valued in terms of a fixed dollar amount. Stocks are relatively volatile and may respond to inflation with increased value… or they may not. The dollar is fiat currency, and since the 1930’s its value has been separated from the value of gold or any other valuable asset; a dollar has no inherent value aside from the raw materials used to create the currency – a penny might be worth $0.005 in zinc, and a bill might be worth $0.01 in cotton, I don’t actually know the correct figures for those values. In the event of considerable inflation – if the dollar was halved in value – then those people holding dollars would have half as much buying power, whereas those holding durable goods or commodities would have relatively unchanged buying power.

Gold and silver coins are the ultimate durable good, the ultimate currency, and it has been that way for hundreds or thousands of years; they are value-dense, easy to recognize, don’t decay, are difficult to fake, and have inherent value due to industrial uses and the cost to produce more (surprise! the market rate of a gold ounce is close to the cost to mine & refine an ounce of gold, not so with the value of a dollar bill). Precious metals like gold and silver are commodities, other commodities include agricultural goods like grain, industrial metals, energy, and any other bulk good that is traded on a market. All these commodities can have volatile short-term prices, but the long-term prices are relatively stable relative to one another, although the recent price increase of gold and silver appears to buck that trend.

The demand for precious metals is a symptom of a general distrust of the dollar to retain value. The stock market slump, followed by the housing market slump and financial implosion crisis, combined with the longest-running war ever fought by the United States, has incited a mild inflationary panic. The Federal Reserve claims to be fighting inflation but at the same time they have roughly doubled the amount of dollar currency in the money supply, and with no net increase in overall value of production we’re looking at a potential halving of the dollar’s value. Thus, many people are turning to gold rather than to stocks and bonds to maintain their long-term wealth, and with the increased demand and limited supply, the prices of gold and silver have quadrupled in the past several years.

Large banks have seized on the public interest in precious metals and have created exchange-traded funds (ETFs) which are designed to track the value of gold and silver, by buying actual gold and silver and storing it, or perhaps buying futures (fixed contracts for future production of the metals). I consider these ETFs to be mostly a scam – you are still holding an instrument valued in dollars, but the bigger problem is that the large bank running the fund has no reason not to oversell positions in the fund, essentially selling gold and silver that does not and will not exist to cover the value of the fund; if the economy reaches a tipping point and everybody tries to pull their “gold” value out, a lot of people will be left empty-handed. If you’re going to buy into gold or silver as an investment of last-resort, something that will hold value when nothing else does, something to use as currency when a dollar bill is only useful for building fires, then make sure to buy actual metal, not an IOU written on a piece of paper or computer screen.

Another possibility with our current banking structure is the ability of banks to boost and suppress the prices of commodities for the personal gain of the banks at the expense of everybody else. The most recent rumor I’ve heard along those lines indicates that banks have been massively suppressing the price of gold and silver for a long time and that the real price should be far higher than the current record-setting high. That’s a difficult pill to swallow, especially as it may be pushed by people and organizations who have a vested interest in selling gold to people who expect the price to continue its meteoric rise. I think we all remember how well that worked out for the stock market and housing market, so it’s hard to recommend getting into yet another market that’s constantly setting high-price records.

Overall, I consider runaway inflation and economic collapse an unlikely and remote possibility. But I have money sitting around in a rainy-day fund, and I feel it would be negligent to avoid diversification, so I bought a small value of government-minted silver coins and keep them in a safe location; I went with silver due to its lower value density – each silver coin is worth roughly $20, versus the $1200 per ounce coin with gold. If their value increases in the future and I need to spend them, then I can; if their value drops then it is hardly any more risky an investment than real estate or the stock market. Some houses in Detroit are worthless, and stocks in GM are similarly devoid of value, but gold and silver will have value so long as any economy at all exists.

The key to accuracy is consistency, in both the rifle and the ammunition used, not to mention the marksman. The ammunition must provide a uniform bullet weight and velocity from one round to another, since any variation will cause a change in the trajectory and thus the impact point at distance. The rifle must propel and release the bullet the same way every time, which means the barrel cannot vibrate or bend much, the action must be immobile, and the scope must stay in perfect alignment; basically, the rifle must be solid and relatively heavy. The stock must not push on the barrel at the front, which means that the barrel and stock must actually be joined no farther forward than the chamber, and that the stock must be rigid forward of that point; typically this is achieved by “bedding” the stock with fiberglass or aluminum. The trigger must be crisp with a relatively light resistance to avoid any destabilizing motion when firing. Long-range accuracy typically means using a heavier projectile that will keep its momentum when fighting against wind resistance, and M118LR is the standard military sniper ammunition, sporting a 175-grain boat-tail hollow-point bullet. Accuracy is typically measured in inches or MOA, which are roughly equivalent at 100 yards, and 1 MOA is considered good for a long-range rifle, and 0.5 MOA is considered excellent; anything better is extraordinary. Hitting a dinner plate at 1000 yards calls for 1 MOA accuracy.

The M24 is a custom-made rifle, built on the Remington 700 long-action platform, with a custom barrel and stock along with a fancy Leupold Mark 4 scope. The rifle alone can actually be bought, for a mere $3685, and the complete sniper weapon system is only $8970; this is somewhat beyond my budget for a long-range rifle, but I felt that I could get something almost as good for considerably less money. The M24 is built with a special barrel which has 5 grooves (instead of the usual 6) and rifling tuned specifically for the M118LR cartridge, at 1 full rotation per 11.25 inches. This same barrel rifling can be purchased on a commercial Remington 700 rifle called the “5-R mil-spec”, which retails for about $1100. I was highly tempted, but that was still a bit rich for my blood, and I already had a couple of Remington firearms that hadn’t quite been perfect, so I continued to look for deals on something similar. I came across a decent deal on a lightly-used but well-reputed Savage rifle fitted with an aftermarket stock that should improve accuracy; I decided to buy it, for about $700.

The specific model is the Savage 10FP, which comes standard with a 24″ heavy-profile .308 barrel with a 1:10″ twist rate, a 4-round internal magazine, a user-adjustable trigger, and a somewhat flimsy stock. The copy I bought had already been fitted with a more solid aftermarket stock, the Bell & Carlson Medalist, which is aluminum-bedded for rigidity and has a free-floating barrel channel. The stock has a couple of front sling swivels, which can be used for attaching a sling or a bipod, and I had the intention of attaching a Harris bipod, similar to the ones used on the M24. The bipod is designed for slightly rounded stocks, and the stock has a flat forend, which allows the bipod to yaw slightly; not a serious problem, and Harris even makes an adapter for flat forends, but it doesn’t offer much improvement. The Harris bipod I bought allows for swivel or tilt, meaning you can tip the rifle sideways to get the scope sights level with the horizon; the adjustment knob for this is notoriously difficult to lock down, so I attached a small handle that gives enough leverage to lock the swivel feature solidly; the swivel is of limited use anyway, I would recommend saving money and getting the non-swiveling model.

For optics, I wanted a scope that could scale from 100 to 1000 yards. This caused me more trouble than I had anticipated, as the bullet-drop for a 175-grain .308 at 100 yards is practically nothing but at 1000 yards it’s about 30 feet, which translates to an angular difference of 30+ MOA (minutes of arc). The implication here is that after allowing some give for mounting imprecision, the scope needs about 40 MOA of adjustment; since the consistency of a scope’s zero tends to decrease towards the edges of adjustment, it’s typically best to avoid those extremes, especially if windage adjustments may be needed, so the desirable adjustment range is more like 60 MOA in one direction. You will not find a scope with that degree of adjustment for less than $1000, but if you mount the scope pointed down by 20 MOA or so and then adjust up by 20 MOA to hit 100 yards and down by 10-15 MOA for 1000 yards, the scope only needs about +/- 30 MOA adjustment, which is still somewhat hard to find. The rifle’s previous owner had attached a 20 MOA scope rail, so I was in luck. I finally found an affordable scope with a fixed magnification of 10x but with an adjustment range of +/- 40 MOA: the Bushnell Elite 3200 10×40mm. This is the same scope that Barrett includes with some of their .50 BMG rifle packages, so I had a feeling it would be a solid buy. I attached it to the scope rail with Burris Xtreme Low rings.

After assembling the rifle with its accessories, I took a few photos before heading to the range. Here’s a full frontal, and here’s a close-up of the Savage AccuTrigger. The AccuTrigger uses a safety device like those found on Glock handguns, which allows the user to adjust the trigger resistance down to about 2 lbs for high target precision. I took my rifle to the range in Issaquah, where they have 25, 50, and 100-yard shooting positions, with the hope of seeing some consistent 1-MOA performance. The 100 yard distance is a pretty long way if you’re accustomed to indoor ranges and handguns: my target in this photo is the white dot in the middle. My first trip was spent mainly trying to dial in the scope, which I did first by roughly bore-sighting the scope by peering through the barrel with the bolt removed. I finally got around to shooting some groups at 100 yards that actually hit close to the mark, and one of them recorded an amazing 0.5 inch 3-shot group.

Not convinced that the half-inch group wasn’t a fluke, I made another trip with a variety of ammunition to try and test the accuracy I could get with each. The test subjects were: Federal Gold Medal Match .308 175 grain, Black Hills .308 Match 175 grain, and American Ballistics M118LR which also uses a 175-grain bullet. I shot 10 rounds of each, in 5-shot groups, switching ammo types after each group. In the following photos, each target was used for only one type of ammo, with the first group in the top left and the second group in the bottom right. My half-inch group had been shot using the Federal ammo, and I was hopeful to repeat that feat so I started with 5 shots of the Federal GMM, to the result of a wide-open 2-inch group. I followed that group with some Black Hills, to see a fairly tight clustering with a high flyer making it about 1.5″ overall. My third group was with the ABT M118LR, which showed a relatively open 1.75″ group. All of the groups were clustered a bit to the right of the aiming point, so I adjusted the scope left by 8 clicks, or 2 MOA. I then did another group with each of the ammo types in the same order, aiming at the bottom-right target spots. The Federal ammo produced another open group, although a bit smaller at 1.5″, and the ABT ammo had similar improvement, closing its group to just over 1.1″ with a high flyer. The Black Hills ammo demonstrated another tight cluster, producing the only group under 1″ of the whole trip (my last 2 shots in this group were actually hurried because the range master was about to call a cease fire). My overall conclusion is that my rifle works best with the Black Hills .308 Match 175gr, which is actually in the middle of the pack for cost, at just over $1.50 per round; long-range accuracy is certainly not a cheap hobby!

I’m honestly a little disappointed that my more-rigorous accuracy experiment didn’t demonstrate any half-inch groups, but I was only hoping for 1″ groups on my budget. I have heard that a break-in process can be used to enhance the accuracy of a rifle, but this is quite a time-consuming process which involves cleaning the barrel between every single shot for 10+ shots, then between every other shot for 20+ shots, then between every five or ten shots for 50+ shots. The idea is that the first bullet through a clean barrel will hit a few imperfections and wear them down as the bullet passes, but that following bullets will only wear down the fouling left behind by the previous bullet. Cleaning between each shot allows the bullets to slowly polish the bore and fully smooth out any imperfections. I’ll have to give it a try when I have several hours free at a range that doesn’t mind cleaning on the firing line. I also realize that my personal shooting accuracy is probably not at its peak, although I did try my best to provide a stable sandbag platform for the rifle and to pull the trigger with maximum smoothness and consistency. I feel that I was able to keep the rifle within at most 0.2 MOA of the same target location for each shot, but if you have some good accuracy tips then please send them my way.

Overall, I’m pleased with the performance of the Savage 10FP considering the money I spent, and time will tell whether I will feel the need for something beyond the capabilities of this rifle. I can’t help but wonder if a few hundred dollars more spent on the Remington 5R could have got me twice the accuracy.

2000:
Started working on Destiny3D

2001:
Graduated high school
Worked at Fuddruckers
Started university at Georgia Tech

2004:
Internship at Autodesk

2005:
Graduated from GA Tech
Visited Hawaii and England
Started a job at Microsoft, on Direct3D
Started skiing regularly

2007:
Met Sarah

2008:
Visited Tokyo, Japan
Sarah moved in
Got a quaker parrot

2009:
Got into shooting guns, bought several
Started rock climbing
Transferred to Project Natal
Bought a house
Got a dog
Got a cat

I didn’t really notice a significant difference in recoil between the calibers, but the overall size of the gun had a major impact – sub-compact pistols actually hurt to shoot, while the large and heavy steel construction of the 1911 ate up most of the recoil. I tried several different manufacturers’ models to see how they varied the trigger feel: the Glock had a sharp safety device which hurt when combined with the poor recoil control of the mostly-plastic construction; the FNP-9 had a very long, heavy trigger pull that drove me off-target; the Sig P220 Elite had a very smooth and short trigger pull in both single and double action; the Springfield XD had a similar feel to the Glock although a bit less painful; the various 1911’s I tried felt good, but the screw in the trigger face bugged me a bit. Overall, I felt that the Sig P220 Elite was my favorite pick of the selection, but balked at spending $1200 on that particular model. I came back another day and tried the lower-end Sig models, in various calibers, and they all felt good, although not quite as smooth as the Elite.

What really sold me on the SIG Sauer P226 was the smooth trigger and safety mechanism. Glock uses an “automatic” safety built into the trigger which requires the trigger to be pressed rather than jarred, a requirement due to the possibility of injury and/or lawsuit if the gun were to discharge accidentally. The Springfield XD has a trigger safety like Glock, in addition to another automatic safety which is disengaged when you apply pressure to the rear of the frame by gripping the gun normally. That feature is borrowed from the ancient 1911 design, which also offers a manual safety. Most pistols offer single-action triggers, which require a manual cocking procedure that varies from one model to another, but typically involves racking the slide or pulling back an exposed hammer. The P226 offers a double-action/single-action trigger, with a de-cocker mechanism which allows you to transfer from the cocked/single-action state into the un-cocked/double-action state. When in an uncocked state, the P226’s trigger will resist at about 10 lbs through a long double-action pull which cocks the hammer and fires; when cocked, the trigger pull is a relatively light 4 lbs and will fire with a short, smooth pull. The 1911 typically offers a smooth trigger with little travel, but will fire only in single-action mode as the hammer must be manually cocked, but it can be carried in a “cocked and locked” position, meaning that the hammer is cocked and the manual safety is locked; when needing to draw and fire the 1911, the safety must be disengaged or the hammer must be cocked. With the Sig P226, you need only pull the double-action trigger; this simplicity and the smooth action are the primary features that sold me on the Sig design. In the case of a dud round, the semi-automatic action will not re-cock the firing mechanism; the double-action trigger gives you a second chance to try firing the round in the chamber. The 1911 can do the same if you manually re-cock the hammer, and the P226 hammer can also be manually cocked, but most Glock-alikes must discard the chambered round to re-cock the firing mechanism.

With my mind set on the Sig, I then perused their catalog of model variations and settled on the P226 9mm SCT model. In 9mm, this model comes from the factory with four 20-round magazines (which extend about 3/4 inch below the bottom of the grip, when standard 15-round magazines are flush with the bottom of the grip). It also sports a fiber-optic front sight, which will gather daylight and focus it towards the eye of the shooter, providing a bright sight picture in daylight. The front and rear sights are also illuminated by phosphorescent tritium vials in darkness, which should last 15 years before dimming significantly. Another feature common to pretty much all new pistols is a small 1913 picatinny rail just ahead of the trigger guard, which can be used to attach flashlights, lasers, or other accessories.

With this pistol, I have demonstrated quite good accuracy, typically keeping all my shots within 2 inches at 5 yards distance when slow-firing. I need to practice more with rapid-fire drills such as double taps and going quickly from holstered to firing, as I wouldn’t feel comfortable carrying a concealed pistol until I felt proficient with such actions to the point of muscle memory. I have accessorized my P226 a bit, adding a flashlight and occasionally a laser sight. I bought a 15-round magazine for the intent of better concealment, although the large grip still makes that difficult and I don’t have a concealable holster for the P226. Using Speer Gold Dot 9mm+P hollow-point ammunition against a pumpkin made short work of it, sending pieces flying in the air and generally making a mess; similar results were observed versus apples and potatoes.

My total expenditure on this pistol, ammunition, and accessories is on the order of $1500, but that includes over 1000 rounds of FMJ target ammunition and 500 rounds of Gold Dot. I feel that this pistol is highly reliable, as I have never experienced a malfunction of any kind while using it. It doesn’t hurt that the P226 was the only competition to the Beretta 92FS for the M9 contract, and lost only due to price; some special forces units still opted for the P226 instead of the M9. I don’t have much more to add, so I’ll finish up with an action shot.

I ended up settling on a specific model of Remington 870, mainly due to the tacti-cool appearance and the feature of a rear ghost ring sight, similar to the iron sight on my AR-15. It also has a picatinny rail ahead of the ghost ring sight, but I haven’t found much need for that yet. I decided on 12 gauge due to the wide availability of ammunition in different sizes of shot and the well-known reputation for stopping power.

I’ve since learned that there’s a model of Benelli Nova in an 18-inch “tactical” model with a ghost ring sight. I would strongly consider this as an alternative to the Remington 870, as Benelli has an outstanding reputation and the Nova has a feature or two that the 870 lacks. The primary bonus feature is the “shell stop button” on the pump forend which allows you to unload the chamber without pulling a round from the magainze, thus allowing you to insert a specific type of ammo without having to cycle it throug the magazine.

Back to my Remington 870… This particular copy actually has an issue with the ring sight that I haven’t yet rectified – one of the windage adjustment screws is frozen in place, which means I can’t adjust the sideways motion on the sight; this wouldn’t be a problem if the gun shot straight, but currently the point-of-impact is a bit right of point-of-aim. The elevation is also way off at the moment, but I blame that on my lack of slug ammo and range time with this shotgun, which is partly because of the expense of slug ammo (close to $1 per shell) and the lack of availability of ranges that allow you to shoot shotgun slugs on a fixed-target (rifle) range. I will try soaking the rear sight module in some solvent to loosen it up and post an update if that works… if not, I’ll call up Remington and see if they can help me out, which worked out fine when the magazine on my old-stock 597 was jamming up. I must also mention that the pump action seems not quite utterly reliable, as I’ve had a few instances of spent shell cases getting caught on their way out of the ejection port; I don’t recall whether I was able to load the next round without fiddling with the dangling casing, but I would call that a failure to eject.

The shotgun is generally regarded as the most powerful short-range weapon available, and I am inclined to agree. After my first range outing, where I shot about 10 rounds of 00 buckshot and four 1oz slugs, my shoulder was sore for 2-3 days. I subsequently bought a Knoxx SpecOps recoil-reducing pistol-grip replacement stock, and my next range outing was far less punishing on my tender flesh. The cantaloupe melon that was on the receiving end of one of those slugs was almost completely obliterated in a single shot, which is a far more devastating reaction than any of the .22 or 5.56mm I’ve shot at fruit or vegetables. 00 buckshot had a similarly devastating effect on a small pumpkin at 10 yards or so, although it fell apart rather than exploding into a shower of goo. My overall cost to acquire, outfit, and shoot this shotgun has so far totalled somewhere close to $700, making it the second-cheapest member of my collection.

I don’t have any pictures of my 870 in action, but here’s a picture of my collection so far. From top to bottom: Remington 870 12ga, Stag Arms AR-15 model 2T, Remington 597 SS. I’ll post more shotgun pictures if any surface from my recent shooting pit outing.

The .22 rifle is a nice gun, but I wanted something with more reach, more punch, and more reliability – something capable of taking large magazines and spending them at a relatively high rate of fire and with good accuracy. At the time, there was much rumor of the political powers reinstating an assault-weapons ban, and the rumor was strengthened by the attorney general outright proclaiming that goal. That rumor has since faded, but at the time I wanted to hedge that bet by buying something that could be banned, despite the price markup that dealers were enjoying. I simply had to get an AR-15 of reputable manufacture and features.

I researched various models and decided I couldn’t live without a quad-rail handguard and a flip-up rear iron sight. Smith & Wesson had a nice model in the M&P 15, but it was beyond my price expectations, which led me towards the Stag Arms Model 2T. This rifle features a 16″ chrome-lined barrel with 5.56mm chamber, a flat-top railed upper receiver, a carbine-length quad-rail handguard by Samson, a collapsible stock, a standard front sight post, and an ARMS 40L folding rear sight. All of those features met my desires, so I set about trying to find the best price. I scoured the internet and discovered the average going price was around $1300-1400, well above the $1125 MSRP. I searched every night on sites like gunbroker.com and gunsamerica.com, and it was relatively easy to filter because nobody else uses a model designation of “2T”. Eventually, I found one listed for under $1200 and decided I had waited long enough and that prices weren’t going down anytime soon; I ordered it and waited patiently for it to arrive.

Perhaps a little too late, I realized that 5.56mm and .223 ammunition costs roughly 10 times what .22 ammo does, so I’ve put considerably fewer rounds through my AR-15 than I have through my .22 rifle. That being said, it is a blast to shoot at the range, and I thoroughly enjoy whenever I take it out. I had to adjust the iron sights a bit to get the rifle zeroed at 100 yards (apparently it’s zeroed for 200 or 300 at the factory), and it took a little while to actually figure out what the different apertures and notches on the folding rear sight were for, since there were no included instructions for the sight.

I’ve never experienced a malfunction with this rifle, but I’ve also treated it pretty well, despite the arduous cleaning requirements. I’ve since purchased various cleaning equipment to try and improve my ability to clean out the bolt carrier, bolt, and firing pin, which get a bit caked up with carbon fouling. I’d hate to be in the army and told to get this thing spotless, because it’s very difficult to get the fouling out of all the nooks & crannies, even with fairly strong solvents. The AR-15 design is quite impressive, as it keeps cost, weight, and total number of moving parts low, but it spits hot gases from the cartridge powder directly onto the bolt carrier. A number of manufacturers have started offering gas-piston AR-15 models this year, and I would strongly consider getting one of those if I were to buy a new AR-15 today, as the gas-piston action keeps the bolt much cooler & cleaner.

I also wanted to put some type of optics on my AR-15. I couldn’t decide between a short-range optic which could be used for close-quarters engagements, or a magnified optic for better precision out to effective range of the rifle, which is 500 yards or so. I ended up deciding to get an ACOG, as I was less enthusiastic about battery-operated red-dot sights, and had heard nothing but praise for the ACOG. I found a good deal on a used copy from someone nearby, and snagged it for almost half off MSRP. I must say, this is an excellent optic, although I’ve only taken it out once to sight it in. My only complaint is that the eye relief is very short at about 1.5″, which requires me to mount it as far back on my flat-top upper as possible, just ahead of the folding BUIS, and still place my cheek quite far forward on the stock. Once I have a good picture, it’s quite easy to line up the sight and hit a target, although I haven’t yet tried using the two-eyes-open aiming technique that the ACOG was developed for.

I did replace the standard plastic pistol grip with a rubberized version with finger grooves, made by Hogue, which I feel made a significant improvement to comfort and control for only $15. I also got a few PMAG magazines, which are extremely tough and feature a window through which you can see the remaining number of rounds in the magazine. I have yet to actually use the quad-rail handguard for anything productive… I did buy a cheap vertical grip to put on it, but decided to leave it off because it was a bit large & flimsy. I considered buying a tactical flashlight and attachment, but ended up just buying a nice bright flashlight and not mounting it. I do appreciate the tacti-cool appearance of the quad-rail and the possibility to attach all sorts of accessories, but if I could go back and do it again, I’d probably save some money and get a standard handguard instead. My total costs for purchasing, outfitting, and operating this AR-15 are upwards of $2500, which makes it the most expensive firearm in my collection.

Here’s a picture of me firing my Stag Arms AR-15 at a nearby shooting pit. On my hip you can also see my Sig P226 SCT 9mm, which I will discuss in a future post.

I started with a .22 rifle, the Remington 597 in synthetic/stainless. The actual rifle I received was old stock sold as new, and I discovered it was 10 years old by searching for the serial number. This meant it came with the original-design plastic magazine, which has a tendency to jam up; a quick call to Remington had them sending me a new-design aluminum magazine for free that has been much more reliable. There are also a few rust spots on the barrel and magazine.

The rifle shoots nicely up to about 100 yards and can be taken to indoor pistol ranges without difficulty. I tried using it to complete a marksmanship evaluation, but wasn’t able to do the prone portion of the test due to backstop and target placement. Extrapolating the standing and sitting portions placed me into the top tier of performance, Expert, which made me feel pretty good about both myself and my equipment. My girlfriend also likes shooting this rifle because it has almost no recoil, is relatively quiet, and it has a very simple blowback recoil action. It does jam up once in a while, the most common being a bolt hold-open failure when the magazine is empty, and the occasional failure-to-feed. I wouldn’t trust my life to this rifle, but it’s fine for short-range target practice with cheap ammo.

Decent .22 ammo has been difficult to find since I bought the rifle, and I recently used up the last of the 525-round Federal value pack I bought along with the rifle back in March. I like this particular ammo because it comes in a hefty value pack, it has copper-plated hollow-point bullets, and the price is right around 4 cents per round. Thankfully, Cabela’s had a bulk offering at a decent price with free shipping, so I now have over 4000 rounds of .22 sitting around, begging to be used. I added a cheap Bushnell scope which makes it relatively easy to get nice tight groups at 50-100 yards off a bench rest. The most affordable piece of my arsenal, this .22 rifle has only cost me about $500 in total, including freight, ammo, and cleaning supplies.

Here’s a picture of me shooting the Remington 597 at the local indoor range, Wade’s.

The most basic transaction of bartering one thing for another consumes energy in the form of movement, so the trade itself must justify not only the value of the goods being traded, but the energy consumed to trade them. Modern trading logistics include transportation, storage, advertising, manufacturing, and raw materials. Each of those boils down to energy as an ongoing cost with some fixed costs assumed: transportation is simple it takes energy to move something; storage consumes energy in the form of employing people and maintaining warehouse or retail conditions; advertising consumes huge amounts of energy in the form of billboards, TV commercials, and other media; raw materials must be discovered and mined before they can be transformed into useful items in the manufacturing process. Occasional fixed costs are incurred by real estate acquisitions and other such things, but those costs are often defrayed long before their utility is worn out.

Life itself is dependent on energy, but most of the required energy is provided by the sun. Modern society draws more heavily on the energy pipe than natural fauna do, by mining and consuming oil, coal, and other energetic resources from the ground. If we don’t balance our energy consumption with our long-term production capabilities, then society will be facing an uphill struggle. Of course, the economy is always available to put a price on something, and as resources become more demanded or less plentiful, their prices will rise relative to other resources, but a rising energy cost has a pervasive effect on everything else.

Rising population numbers will eventually butt heads with dwindling energy availability, to the point that the marginal productivity gain of an additional person will be less than the total cost to keep that person alive at an acceptable standard of living. Essentially, the cost of living will outweigh the value of living.

Perhaps nature will have a corrective effect before that happens. We appear to be facing global warming that cannot be halted, which will have adverse effects on a multitude of people, by wiping out coastal population centers and drastically altering weather patterns and decimating crop growth. Perhaps the economy itself is a natural force, and the cost/value of living is simply an abstract objective measure of a natural force in action.

In either case, individuals will be faced with vital decisions such as supporting those in need, defending what they have against those who would take it, or taking what they can from those who have it. At first this will only happen in emergency situations, but will likely become more frequent and regular after those emergencies soften the impact of societal change.

What can an individual do to prepare for such an eventuality? Learn to live with less energy usage – try to live for a few days without burning any fuel, using any electricity, or eating anything from a retail outlet. That’s extreme, even in the most dire situation there will still be at least some energy to harvest and distribute, but emergency situations can lead to extended power cuts and broken infrastructure, as seen in New Orleans in the wake of a hurricane. Assemble an emergency cache with water, food, fuel, tools, medical supplies, and a gun. Learn to protect yourself and your property with vigilance and security measures. Learn to use a weapon, practice your marksmanship. Figure out who your good friends are and who you can’t trust in times of need.

You may not see an end to modern society in your lifetime. With the cost of living on the rise, global warming producing increasingly dramatic weather, and the global economy experiencing a quickening pace of volatility, the chances are increasing that you’ll be faced with an emergency or panic. I’d say it’s worth the effort to be prepared.

The pleasantries cease there, though. My savings rate, which is the entire reason I even opened the account at Wamu back when they offered 5% APY, is now 0.01% at Chase, which is apparently the rate that Chase changes daily at their discretion. The Wamu rate had gradually decreased from the 5% mark, reaching 0.85% immediately before the Chase changeover, but that’s still a far cry from 0.01%! They also have the gall to label this account “CHASE PREMIER SAV” which I suppose is meant to be somehow better than their standard offering.

In addition to the non-existent “savings” interest rate, I also can no longer use MS Money to easily and automatically centralize my banking information unless I pony up $10 PER MONTH to allow Money to download statements automatically. They now label my checking account “FREE EXTRA CKING” and when I fill in the missing letters, I’m more inclined to think I’m getting extra fucking rather than checking.

So now I ask myself, why would I even consider keeping this account open? My savings are accruing interest at roughly the same rate as a piece of stale bread, and I can no longer use the banking software that I have used for the past 3 years without ongoing additional cost.

Conclusion: fuck off and die, Chase.

Obviously it’s taken me a while to kind of recover, and I think writing something about the process might help me some more. I’ve actually refrained from writing other blog posts because I didn’t want to let this pass without committing something to written words. I don’t aim to depress myself or others, although I’m sure a few tears will escape my eyes while writing the next several paragraphs.

She fought the cancer and endured treatment for many months before it overcame her. Nothing quite compares with the experience of picking up the phone one morning and having your sobbing father say you don’t have much time to say goodbye. She proved wrong the doctors’ estimate of 2 days, more than doubling that in the face of fatal lung failure, congested with metastasized tumors. We ended up having sufficient opportunity to say our goodbyes, talk about fond memories, settle affairs, and partly work through our grief before even completely losing her. It was a grueling several days in the ICU with no humidity, not knowing when the time might come or what to do afterwards.

I will definitely miss a number of things about my Mum, especially her strong character and caring nature. We had plenty of disagreements and fallings-out, but we never held a grudge against one another, and she was always so pleased with the accomplishments I’ve made in life: good grades, nice friends, fun & well-paying jobs, and all the other little things. She didn’t micro-manage my life but rather left me to my own devices, although there were times when I felt she and my dad made decisions for me that weren’t in my best interests – going to school out of state while moving across the country left me feeling pretty lonely, but I came out of that in the end and met some cool people along the way. She always had compelling tales from her childhood, like stealing the neighbor’s cat, riding the train to school, her brother heading off to boarding school, living in various exotic places like Singapore, and many others that presently elude my memory.

She was rather different from me, but those are probably the things that stood out the most to me. She had a really nice signature, always identical, flowing smoothly through sharp lettering and annunciated with a dominant but relaxed J. She had a knack for making friends, easily eliciting life stories from people mere minutes after meeting them; we were always on good terms with the local Chinese restaurant because she’d befriended the manager. Our cat always loved her, perhaps because she always fed him the good stuff, but he was always following her through the house or curled up by her side. She wasn’t the epitome of health (she was overweight and had high blood pressure and diabetes), but one of the things she expressed regret for was her lack of physical activity – she stopped the swimming she had enjoyed in her youth and the walking she often did around town in England – and she urged me to take better care of myself than she had of herself.

A number of my significant life experiences have been shared exclusively with my Mum. We visited England the summer I graduated from university and took a blitz tour of London in a day that gave me many good photos. I would have ended up in a jail cell had she not come to bail me out after getting arrested for running a stop sign. She visited me at Georgia Tech and we ate steak for Thanksgiving dinner in downtown Atlanta, when the holiday would otherwise have been dull and boring on the deserted campus. Living in Epsom while my dad worked in Scotland during the weekdays, she played a huge role in my early development. My brother tagged along on some of those, but my mother was obviously the dominant factor in all of them.

It’s clear to see that I’d be in a very different place without my mother’s support and guidance, and it still makes me sad that I won’t be able to further reward her with the various experiences most people eventually get to enjoy. She’ll never have the chance to babysit her grandchildren, or even to know their mother. She won’t ever enjoy a retirement in a warm, relaxing place. She won’t befriend yet another Chinese restaurant manager. She won’t visit her friends and family in England again, or travel to Italy where my brother was born. Clearly she’s not the only one missing out here – all of those things involve numerous other people who have been robbed of the possibility of knowing this lovely woman.