Employment Limbo

So, my contract is up. But, The boss in charge of deciding whether to hire me or not has told me to keep working until I'm told otherwise. Company has desperate need for my position to be filled, and my boss I actually do work for seems quite pleased with my work.

Not going to complain about having both more paychecks to sock away if needed and more time to prove to the company that maybe they should keep me around.

You'll know when I know, because I'll either start posting a lot thanks to not having a job, or post something real purty of whatever new boomstick I get to celebrate having gotten hired on direct and the raise that comes with it.

Bring me your home-made guns

Finally getting back into it to finish up GURPS Metro: Weapons, but I'm planning an Addendum post with specific models and examples. I'm also planning a "Here's why gun control doesn't work, look at all these guns made despite total gun control. Stop being an idiot, guns have existed for 1000 years, and aren't going away no matter how hard you wish for it." post.

I've got plenty of links from The Firearm Blog for some nice compilations, but if anyone has some other links lying around to some good rough-hewn guns, that'd be fantastic for both purposes.

SMGs and Shotguns in particular, but old fashioned or improvised rifles, pistols, and anything else are good.

AR-15 nonsense; (vaguely) legitimate uses for law workaround parts

One of the parts for the AR-15 that's often ridiculed for merely existing is the non-pistolgrip, to remove a "scary" feature from it and let it get by onerous gun laws. I finally came up with a use for one outside of someplace where it's used only because the law forces it.

Over the years, I've saved myself and bailed my party from many a bad situation with an SMG or assault rifle under my character's coat. Realistically, the extensive height of a modern sporting rifle renders this a difficult proposition, even with a large, loose coat. I've pulled it off quite effectively with my S2k under my duster, but I could feel the grip desperately attempting to print.

While pondering the pistol "wrist brace", along with my bf playing some Payday 2 beside me, it came to me. A lower cap magazine, a non-pistolgrip grip, and the wristbrace gives a slimline gun. Add in a shoulder holster or single point sling set to keep the gun at your side, and it should vanish under nearly any coat. When not in the gun, magazines actually don't add that much bulk for a couple, it's only when they're stuck out the bottom at 90 degrees they really add to the size.

Everyone keeps whining about people open carrying rifles. Maybe they'll whine less if I carry mine under my coat? Hey, they SAID they didn't want to see it!

Employment and Arffteens

So, my job for the past ~5.75 months isn't sure they'll be renewing my contract or hiring me. I got very little feedback from bosses, even when I asked for it, and it took about a month and a half to get my mid-contract performance review from when I tried (Which is to say, moderately early in the 3 month contract so I could fix any issues, and work on job applications if need be). Finally, I was informed "well, there were some problems and you're not quite to where we'd hoped you'd be, not that anyone bothered to tell you anything. I guess I'll keep evaluating for the last 3 weeks of your contract and see"

Whenever I managed to get my bosses to tell me anything, it was generally positive, or minor issues that I moved to correct. I wasn't aware that I had to hunt them down and browbeat them into actually giving me a decent review of how I was doing. Until now, I've been used to a lot of minimum wage jobs where they'd inform/threaten to fire you for the slightest flaw, such as talking with co-workers while you worked (when both you and your co-worker are ahead of the rest of the assembly line by a significant degree)

That said, I've been saving up as a contingency. If I have solved the issues, chief among them the fact that I'm a very quiet person, a portion of this saved up dosh will be converted to the AR-15 I've been meaning to buy for ages. Everything says now's the time to buy. If I haven't, I'll use the savings to get through until I find another job, and THEN I'll be picking up my rifle. Or "pistol", if the stupid part of my brain wins out and successfully convinces me that an AR pistol with a "wrist brace" is anything other than a terrible unnecessary idea.


Planned build, as much a I have it planned, is as follows:
LW-15 Lower Receiver
Mid length gas system Dissipator upper, either Magpul furniture or rails with rail guards. Flat top.
GripPod VFG
Light/Laser Combo, rail mounted.
Either a red dot + (eventual) magnifier, or a 1-4x scope. I'm good with irons, long sight radius due to dissipator will help.
Sling, to be determined (haven't looked at what's around in a while)
Magpul 40 rd magazines
(eventually) compact suppressor, probably A1 flash hider until then.
Battery Assist Device, possibly.

SBR question

As I've mentioned previously, I have an unwarranted love of SMGs and similar such things. Owning a Glock, and often seeing things with the various flavors of GlockStock, I kind of want one. Better yet, I have thoughts for my own.

Problem is, NFA bullshit with SBRs. Also, the fact that to put a stock on a gun, you must turn that gun into the SBR, getting it a new serial number, and only being able to use the stock on said gun.

What I want to do, if possible, is register the stock itself as the SBR. I know that there are bits of machine guns, such as autosears, full auto conversion bolts, and the like, which have their own serial number and paperwork, conferring their legal MG status to any gun into which they are placed.

Something to ponder for a bit down the road when I start shelling out for tax stamps and jumping the flaming hoops, if those are still necessary.

Cat found

Came back from frantically checking everywhere I could after work, and wandering around the whole neighborhood, to have the little twerp waiting by the back door. Coaxed him over with treats, and he's safely back inside and happy to be there.

We now resume our halfassed "blogging" as regularly scheduled.

Lost Cat

I actually had time and motivation for writing things, and probably would have pounded out another couple posts (including the Metro Weapons) this weekend, and then my cat managed to get out a window and, being the fuzzy little dipshit that he is, get lost. Spent all weekend trying to hunt him down to no avail. Apparently there are 2-3 other essentially identical black cats that wander the neighborhood.

I miss the little twerp, wish me luck at finding him. Hopefully he finds his way home, or to someone that can bring him home.

Gunsmithery

I've got several gun designs I want to play around with when I have my workshop set up. The simplest is a slam tube/guerrilla shotgun, improved with an ejection mechanism and a shell side-saddle. Tube-in-tube simplicity, that can be fired as fast as you can single-load a pump shotgun. The next is an intermediate carbine that brings Uzi level simplicity to 5.56. It'll trade accuracy for simplicity and ease of manufacture, but it'll also make things like the AK look needlessly complicated for doing the same thing.

But the first, real project I have, full complexity and capability? Going to pretty much be a pistol(?) carbine version of the Moon Marines SMG. .30 carbine, mp5 style collapsible stock, feeds off M1 Carbine mags out of the grip. Having an S2k, I can attest to just how handy a carbine with the magazine in the stock is, but I want one that hits with some oomph, because nobody makes carbines in 10mm auto or other such magical calibers that I"d never be able to find to feed to the gun anyway.

Probably be a while before I've moved on to somewhere that I have a proper garage to turn into a workshop, but you'll be seeing progress when things get started.

Rust

Took my S2k apart a while back to reverse engineer parts out of it for the company I did a bit of that for. It never made it back together, just never had the time or motivation to do so. Went to put it together, and found a worrying amount of rust. Thankfully it was all very much surface rust, and a bit of Tri-Care and some elbow grease cleaned it all right off.

Now to remember how to put this thing back together, I took it ALL the way apart, instead of just partway like you do for normal cleaning.

Sci-Fi Friday; THE MOON MARINES

"Next time, on the harrowing adventures of... THE MOON MARINE! The Mars Men are invading, and only the Moon Marine stands between them and conquest? Will our hero prevail? And what of the machinations of the Moonanites?! Find out next time, on, THE MOON MARINE"

There's a business on the way up to the family cabin in the north woods of Wisconsin, called Moon Marine. It screamed ~30s pulp radio drama to me, and I was looking for things to draw at the time (was riding in the car).

If I run the raygun gothic/dieselpunk space campaign I want to at some point, this is pretty much going to be the party's standard armor and armament. 

I picture that space SMG as being chambered in something like a .30 carbine optimized for shorter barrels, or something similar. Great big capacity per magazine (Enlistment poster, actual Moon Marines will have pouches and packs and such), power just shy of intermediate caliber, probably with AP rounds standard because space. Possibly also tracers, because futuristicy.

Tech Tuesday; short but medtech edition

http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/shock-and-kill-approach-cures-mice-hiv-world-first

http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/%E2%80%9Csurprising%E2%80%9D-oral-vaccine-stops-hiv-monkeys

So, progress on curing the incurable. That's rather handy. Of course, with all the terrible and corrupt that is Africa, getting it where it's needed most will remain an issue, but having a cure/treatment is still a plus over "Welp, sucks to be you"


That's pretty much all I found in the past week. Still, handy stuff.

Got made today

No, not in the mafia sense, what kind of dipshit would I be to talk about that?

No, I got made as a concealed carrier. To be fair, I wasn't trying particularly hard. Was working the axe/knife throwing booth at the Highland Games, and a gentleman waiting at the front of the line glances over
"You could use a bit looser shirt on the right side, you're printing quite a bit"
I just replied with the fact that I mostly cover it up as a courtesy (at the Highland games, half the people there have swords/knives/axes/etc strapped all over anyway, so nobody so much as batted an eye), and figure that at 6'3", 200 lbs of primarily muscle, with a flat top, anyone paying attention enough to notice printing would probably guess I'd be the type to carry anyway.
He chuckled and mentioned that he could stand to lose a few pounds to free up fabric on the sides for the same reason.