18 Dec 02

Wolf and S&B incidents:

"I arrived thirty minutes after everyone had started punching paper and noticed a large supply of Wolf ammunition. I spoke to my friend and reminded him of my earlier caution about Wolf.

Too late:

I had barely completed my sentence when a SIG broke its extractor. A new Para Ordinance 45 did the same thing minutes later.

I gained no happiness in saying, 'I Told You So.'"

"I was shooting my brand new AR15-A2 and thought I would use up some Sellior & Bellot 223 ammunition.. I was aware of your caution on S&B, but I thought there was no harm in using it for practice.

After a few minutes, I discovered that a good percentage of the cartridges would neither fire nor extract. A close examination revealed that some of the cases were visibly shorter than others in the same box. I immediately stopped using it.

That evening I pulled out the remaining S&B boxes and randomly measured cartridges with a Dillon head space gage. Although all cases were all marke d '223 Rem," 120 of the 560 rounds I checked were way too short!

All remaining S&B ammunition (in all calibers) was immediately dumped. I will never purchase or use S&B ammunition again."

Lesson: Again, most foreign ammunition is trash, particularly the stuff coming from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. You'll have to save a lot on ammunition to make up for a ruined gun and/or a personal injury!

/John

18 Dec 02

An individual was traveling by air last week and had a connection at Chicago's O'Hare Airport. He was stopped by the new federal security folks and informed that he had been selected for a random search of his checked baggage. Officers from the Chicago Police Department came along. His checked luggage was examined and found to contain a sheathed knife. I don't know how big it was or what brand. In any event, the feds were indifferent to the knife. He was told by the federal officer that it was okay to transport knifes in checked baggage. The examination was completed, and he was sent on his way.

"Not so fast," said the CPD officers. They arrested him, saying that, notwithstanding the federal rules on transport of knives in checked baggage, the City of Chicago considered this knife to be a "concealed weapon," in violation of city ordinances.

This person, of course, missed his flight. The case is still pending in Chicago.

The lesson here is that overlapping and contradictory laws that apply simultaneously make compliance, or even knowing that you are or are not complying, impossible. In the government's ongoing war on all forms of privacy, authorities now have access to areas previously unexposed and considered private.

Several months ago, in a similar incident at O'Hare that involved me, I personally found the CPD guys to be pretty cool. At that time, they had no problem with knives and a number of other items I had in checked baggage. The above incident may have involved a young officer still in "academy mode." I don't know those details. Makes one think twice about declaring anything!

With the world situation the way it is, we must all reexamine our personal profile. The "stealth existence" is going to be the order of the day, and we all need to be experts at it!

/John