December 4, 2017 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Awesome Food For The Outdoors|How To Make Salted Meat With Spices"--Survival Russia (12 min.). He also has a follow-up video describing how his grandmother salted meat.

• I have followed the Survival Lilly channel on YouTube since fairly early on. However, due to YouTube's demonetization of anything that it deems politically incorrect, she has had to start a second channel--Survival Lilly Restricted--and move certain content (mostly her hunting and firearm related videos) to that channel. So, check it out and subscribe.
• "AR-15 Muzzle Brake Shootout #3"--The Truth About Guns. An updated comparison with some new entries and old favorites. This time, the best brake (i.e., the one with the greatest recoil reduction) was the SJC Titan Compensator. However, this is not one to be used in dim light or indoors as the flash and concussion looks pretty awesome.
• Western Rifle Shooters Association indicates that Matt Bracken is making his books free for download from Amazon over this week with different books available on different days. Unfortunately, this started Sunday, so one book is out of the picture. However, his latest, The Red Cliffs of Zerhoun, will be a free download on Friday.
• "DNO Firearms DX-7 Modernized AK Rifle"--The Firearms Blog. Their version of the AK has an aluminum receiver that tips up for access to the guts, similar to the AR. This also means that it has a fixed rail for optics. The charging handle has been shifted to the left side of the weapon, and their is a selector lever similar to the AR and other modern sporting rifles. It appears to retain the same trigger assembly, bolt, bolt carrier, gas system and barrel as the original. It is not yet available for sale, but the company has said that final price should be around $1,000.
• Heh. "An unexpected threat to Chinese warships"--Bayou Renaissance Man. Due to overfishing and pollution, the South China Sea is chock full of jellyfish. And they don't play well with cooling intakes on China's new aircraft carrier. 

Once in the cooling vents, they get mashed into a thick, sticky soup.

This blocks the cooling system, causing the engines to overheat and bringing the warship to a halt.

It then reportedly takes days to clear the pipes.

So now the carrier has to be proceeded by a tugboat towing huge nets and shredders that catch the jellyfish (and anything else that gets caught up) and turn them into fine chum. 

• "No Francis, Your SBR isn’t as Good as a Rifle at 600 yards: The Value of Velocity"--New Rifleman. A 2015 article in which the author notes:

        The problem with assuming the SBR is as good as other platforms at a distance stems from a community with a limited grasp on ballistics. At known distances, modern optical sighting systems allow you to dial in dope with an extreme degree of precision and repeatability. Punch in your data, and your I-phone can tell you exactly how many clicks to go up in order to hit that silhouette at 900 yards…

         The difficulty comes when the shooter is in a field scenario where he (or she) is under a time constraint to hit a target of varying size presentation at an unknown distance. At this point, if our target is going to present for only a few seconds, there is little to no time to dial in dope or to accurately estimate the exact target distance. Our chance of hitting that target will be highest with a projectile which that shoots as flat as possible, and that is a balance of ballistic coefficient and velocity.

• "Hornady SBR Ammo"--Rifleshooter Magazine. Discussion and review of Hornady's 75-grain 5.56 mm round designed for use out of a short-barrel system. From the article:

Hornady’s new 5.56 75-grain InterLock HD SBR Black load penetrates very well while reliably expanding. Hornady’s testing using an 11.5 inch barrel showed it to penetrate to an average depth of 17 inches in bare 10 percent ordnance gel; 14.7 inches when the gel was protected by FBI protocol steel barrier; 17.2 inches after penetrating a wall board barrier; 16.7 inches through a plywood barrier; and 15.2 inches through an auto glass barrier. In bare gel it expanded to .46 inch and had a retained weight of 69.5 grains, or 93 percent.

I would like to see the results in ballistic gelatin after going through heavy clothing, though. 

• "How Prayers Saved My Life And Those Of Many American Soldiers During The First Iraq War"-- Douglas V. Mastriano at The Federalist. Some interesting anecdotes, including this: 

        A swift and easy victory over the Iraqi Army was not a foregone conclusion. During the buildup to war, we were told to anticipate high casualties and a hard fight against our adversaries. This is where prayer made the difference. Our chief concern was the Iraqi Army using chemical weapons once we attacked.

        All the indications were that Saddam would do this. Baghdad used chemical weapons extensively during its long war against Iran (1980-1988), and even against its own Kurdish people (1988). The prevailing winds generally blew out of Iraqi into Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. This meant that the environment favored Iraqi use of chemical weapons. Yet prayer changed the course of nature and perhaps the outcome of the war.

         The Second Armored Cavalry Regiment began the attack into Iraq the day before the actual ground war. Artillery and U.S. Air Force aircraft bombarded forward Iraq positions while our tanks advanced. As the first of our tanks crossed into Iraq at 1:30 p.m. on 23 February 1991, I witnessed the wind literally change direction from its northwesterly prevailing course to a southwesterly one.

          I was speechless, for as the unit’s intelligence officer (S2), I spoke often of the problem the prevailing winds posed. The wind change meant the Iraqi Army could not use chemical weapons, as the wind would blow it back on its own troops. The precise timing of this can only be the result of prayer.

• "The First & Last SAW: Why the Squad Belt-Fed Is a Dead End (Brief Thoughts 005)"--Nathaniel F. at The Firearms Blog. Nathan argues that the SAW is too inaccurate and too heavy (particularly considering its ammunition requirements) to continue to serve as a viable squad level weapon, particularly when compared to the Marine Corps' M27 IAR. 
• "Charlottesville report tells us what happens when the police fail to do their job"--USA Today.
• Energy independence: "GOP Senate Opens ANWR to Oil Drilling"--PJ Media. The bill opens up less than 10% of the ANWR to drilling, so the environmental impact will be minimal, but gives us access to billions of barrels of oil.
• More energy independence: "Trump shrinks Utah monuments angering environmentalists"--BBC News. The liberals don't like it when the "I have a phone and a pen" is in Republican hands. The two monuments are the Bears Ears National Monument and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. These two monuments have been reduced in scope and split into 5 monuments. The Bears Ears National Monument was created by Obama as a final "screw you" to Utah. The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was created by Bill Clinton in 1996 as an end run around Congress, which was split over whether to create a wilderness area and how large to make it. At the time, it was believed that he had twisted the purpose of the antiquities act, which was never intended to set aside such huge amounts of land. It also created a whole slew of problems and issues over access to property for other land owners (the largest of which was Utah) and disputes over who owned existing roads. The Federal government eventually traded land and paid off Utah over the state land, but the other disputes simmered.

         Of course, as with all things Clinton, Bill's motive was not purely because he loved the outdoors. Rather, a portion of the monument, the Kaiparowitz Plateau, is estimated to contain 7 billion tons of low-sulfur, high-BTU coal, which was going to be mined by Kentucky-based company Andalux Resources (sub-surface mining, at that). However, this rich of coal deposits of this type of clean burning coal is only replicated in two other areas of the world--a deposit in Columbia which was years from development, and the coal fields of South Kalimantan (Borneo), Indonesia. And, by coincidence, the latter fields were being developed the Lippo Group: "a powerful $5 billion Indonesian conglomerate, founded and owned by the Riady family who, it turned out, had raised and funneled millions of dollars into [Clinton] campaign coffers." And in another coincidence, "Entergy Group of Little Rock [Arkansas], in partnership with the Lippo Group of Hong Kong, signed a memorandum of understanding with the North China Power Corporation for the cooperative management and expansion of the $1 billion 1,200 megawatt coal-fired Daton 2 power plan in Shanxi Province."

         Needless to say, this change--something promised by Trump during his campaign (can you believe it, a politician that keeps his campaign promises)--removes the coal rich portion of the Kaiparowitz Plateau from the national monuments. Nevertheless, Trump didn't completely revoke what his predecessors had done--the 5 new monuments will still comprise in excess of 1 million acres. Which seems like a nice compromise for the competing interests. But, then, liberals don't actually believe in compromising.

• The Earth creates global warming gases: "Study suggests hydrogen, oxygen, water and carbon dioxide generated in Earth's mantle"--Phys.org. More bad think: these are also the raw materials for petroleum, meaning that oil may be continuously produced by natural processes.