Rummaging Through the Holiday Mail
A couple of letters have crossed the Czar’s desk recently.
The first one is from the Retired Spook, who used to haunt our Castle more than he has been. Anyway, for those of you with last-minute gift-giving needs and—we should add—an extra .45 1911A1 pistol or two.
| Your Immensity; With your permission, I thought I’d get in a pitch for something that I think highly of, i.e., .22LR conversion kits. I owned two, one being a permanent fixture on one of my full-size Kimbers (the conversion has been on there so long it may have taken root) and one for my Stag Arms 2L, a left-handed M-forgery. Both have been acceptably accurate, very reliable, and more fun than should be allowed by law, supporting cheap plinking, good training for newbies, and just general damfoolishness. (The Stag version has done much to protect our single pecan tree from the depredations of killer mutant ninja zombie squirrels.) But a steel-frame 1911 is a still a bit much for some of the smallish Minions, so when I discovered that Kimber offered a compact version of their .22LR conversion, I went shopping, and found one, on Gunbroker, for a silly low price, and, being not-entirely-senile, picked it up. It arrived a couple of days ago, and when I (finally) got some time, I put it on the EDC Kimber Pro Carry. I’m not saying that it’s lightweight, but for $0.87, I could airmail the whole thing to Brazil! It’s decently accurate, pretty reliable, and fairly tolerant of a wide range of .22LR ammunition. All in all, I think it’s the cat’s knickers, and have been having a ball with it! To date, I’ve got about 350 rounds through it, with 1 FTF in the first 100 rounds. Since then, it’s been flawless. I’d have a hard time finding any .22LR autoloader that worked better at this price point, and I have the option of turning it back into a .45 ACP in about 40 seconds. The littler Minions are going to have a blast with this thing, since they get to shoot “Papa’s gun” out in the back yard. The only problem will be keeping one of them from stealing it when I’m not looking! Anyway, just thought I’d pass thing along, for anyone who’s got Minions that need training. Have a wonderful Merry Christmas, and a delightfully Happy New Year! Retired Spook |
So there you go. The Czar will add, though, that when the Царевич was a mere six-years-old, we let him fire a subcompact single-stack .45. It was his choice, of course, as he had never fired a handgun before and he hit the target easily. One’s own children and grandchildren, perhaps, might enjoy a .22LR version of a hand cannon, but the sooner you get little ones onto a full-frame 1911, they will simply love you more. It’s as basic as that.
On an unrelated note, we received a rather cryptic note (which we love, by the way—let’s not muddy up our smokescreen conspiracy organizations with clarity) regarding the Czar’s recent essay regarding how our two political parties keep screwing themselves. Operative MM writes:
| You say: “Republicans have long been completely incompetent at messaging.” I would merely note that there is at least ONE who proves you wrong. |
The Czar isn’t inclined to guess, but he couldn’t come up with a recent one. There have been more-than-a-few outstanding candidates over the last several years, but none who are great at getting the basic ideas across. Scott Walker and Mitt Romney delivered great ideas, but both lost out to the Democrats’ spoofing. Marco Rubio is great at simplifying the message so people get it, but his messages are not always worth repeating too loudly.
No, the Czar has to go all the way back to Ronald Reagan, who was President over 100 years ago, it feels, to find a candidate who could deliver an outstanding message in a simple way… to the point that most voters hearing his message and hearing the media’s bastardization of it would immediately prefer to believe the former.
But that was such a long, long time ago.
Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.