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Reviewing the Marlin 1895 SBL
I have had some Marlin rifles, and what American deer, bear, or small game hunter doesn’t have one or two along the way in a life in the woods. But I never got so excited about one of them that I needed to join an online forum to discuss them and compare notes on handloads (handloads are non-commercial ammunition loaded by hand by the end-user, on a personally owned loading press, allowing the shooter to tailor ammunition to exacting tolerances and specific uses). This changed with the purchase of a new Ruger-made Marlin 1895 SBL, which I am really liking (after sending it back for much needed warranty work immediately after taking possession of it brand new in the box from the factory – ahem).
Overview
The new Ruger-made Marlin 1895 SBL (https://www.americanrifleman.org/content/2023-rifle-of-the-year-marlin-1895-sbl/) is a rugged, well designed firearm that I bought for two reasons and for two uses: It is fast shooting and unusually hard hitting within 50-60 yards for a sporting rifle, and I cannot think of a better rifle to hunt with on our bear drives here in PA and on bear hunts in Alaska.
After several months of ownership, here are my experiences with this gun.
Despite purchasing it brand new from the factory, I returned it to Marlin one day after picking it up from the gunshop, because the lever screw backed out, the action kept binding up, it was difficult to cycle the lever, had lots of sharp metal edges, and proud wood around the tang. This gun should have never been allowed out of the factory in the first place, and yet the buyer demand is so high that there must be pressure on the factory to just sling them out the door. According to reports made by other new owners, my experience is not unique. Ruger Marlin is going to kill their golden goose if they keep up this sloppy behavior. The gun is being sold on its presumed high quality.
The “Improved, slimmer” Forearm
While Marlin touts that the new, improved 1895 SBL forearm is slimmer than the old one, it is still too fat. This forearm is hardly easy to handle, and is not slim by any definition. It can easily use another 1/8” shaved off each side, or more, and tapered, like a shotgun forearm. That is, if you mean what you say about the forearm being easier to handle, dear Marlin.
Floppy Trigger Syndrome
The SBL’s factory trigger is pretty good, though it could be better. It is almost crisp, with a very defined and short step of creepy travel, and no stacking, but is a bit heavier than I and other users would like. It works well as a hunting trigger, which is all it really has to do anyhow. I don’t think this trigger was designed by a liability-minded lawyer. Other reviewers have reported that their 1895 SBL triggers were coming in between 5.5 to 8.5 pounds pull weight, and I am just guessing that this particular gun’s trigger is around 5.5 pounds. My preference would be in the 2.5-4.0 pound pull weight range, but I do not believe this factory trigger is adjustable. So “it is what it is,” as that tired old cliché goes, though there are superior aftermarket triggers available (https://www.wildwestguns.com/product/trigger-happy-kit/). One thing I do not like about the factory trigger is that it flops around and can make a tiny metallic sound. It would be preferable that it be stationary, locked in place, and not make noise. Because it’s on a hunting gun, and hunters require stealth. Nonetheless, the factory trigger works well as-is, and it certainly could be a lot worse.
One Rugged Beast
The SBL is one well made and tightly built rugged beast, and I think this is one of the main reasons for its popularity. Stainless steel and high tech laminate wood on anything, especially a firearm, mean it is made for southeast Alaska, at least, or anywhere else that is physically challenging and frequently wet and/or loaded with salt air. This is a rugged gun that should take all the wet and salty environment that could ever be encountered under normal hunting or camping conditions. The stainless steel does result in a shiny, reflective presence, however, and maybe too shiny for a hunting gun. Someone out there is going to bead blast their SBL for good reason, and thereby start a trend.
OK, I Guess Modern Hunting Guns are High Tech
Because I am a devoted black powder shooter and hunter, and because the year 1895 was the pinnacle of firearm development for people addicted to antiques and history like me, and because I prefer break-action single shots and double rifles over all other types of sporting guns, and because nicely blued or blacked steel with figured walnut make the most attractive firearms, I have heretofore been positively allergic to stainless steel and plastic modern guns. Everything about them just irked the crap out of me. Modern sporting firearms are just not appealing to me on any ground, most especially because nearly all of them are just plain ugly as hell. But in recent years I came to recognize that the most beautiful sporting arms can and likely will be destroyed by extended visits to places like Alaska, and so I came to a form of détente on this conundrum by recognizing the unique abilities of the SBL, and only the SBL. Its traditional lever action form is recognizable as quintessentially American, even in stainless and epoxy laminate.
The SBL is not only stainless steel and laminate wood that you can dig out a fox hole with, it also comes with a screw-off end cap for attaching a sound suppressor or a muzzle brake. Neither of these make any damned sense to me on this gun in the relatively quiet out-of-the-box 45-70, but whatever. People who are already crazed about suppressors and high tech gear-queer technical gobbledygook like muzzle brakes on deer cartridges will have all the joys of toys their little flaming hearts desire with this rifle’s little bells and whistles. Leave me out of it. To me, this is just a reliable, fast action mechanical gun in a caliber I can rely on in close-quarters grizzly country, end of technical story.
However, the factory attached Picatinny rail is pretty intriguing, even if it is also downright fugly as sin. It blows up and sets on fire whatever nice lines the 1895 SBL had to start with, but it is a valuable addition for those who use scopes and red dots and other training wheel tubular sighting contrivances on guns that don’t need them. I myself have not yet needed to use a scope on any gun I own, much less this lever action, and so this Picatinny rail is of no use to me. But in the interest of not “fixing” things that are not broken, I will leave it attached to my rifle and just hope it stops jabbing me in the proverbial eye every time I look at the gun.
This Gun Can SHOOT
Accuracy out of the box indicates these are being roughly sighted in at the factory with a laser bore sight, which is a good place to start shooting it in for hunting accuracy after you take possession of it. Do not take your 1895 SBL hunting out of the box! A fair amount of adjusting the rear peep sight for windage and elevation was necessary to get this one dialed in point-of-aim at 70 yards, which is the likely range I will be using it (see below for the deer I took with it this week at a measured 151 yards). Four shots were needed to get it centered, using the Hornady LeveRevolution 325 grain FTX, which is pretty much the standard factory ammunition designed for this gun.
Reloaders be aware that the loaded Hornady FTX brass is trimmed back shorter to accommodate the long ogive on their polymer-tipped FTX bullet that comes with their factory ammunition. You might be able to reload the Hornady factory ammunition FTX empty brass, depending on which bullet you use, and I certainly will try. If you are reloading with the Hornady FTX, then the empty brass can be reloaded without any fussing or fooling around. Other bullets, I don’t know. The 45-70 brass of any manufacturer is expensive enough to warrant trying to reload each one as many times as possible.
Accuracy is excellent after dialing in the open sights. Surprisingly good. Actually, amazingly good. This is, after all, a lever action with a short barrel, and historically these kinds of guns were mostly utilitarian 3” MOA (achieving three-inch groups at 100 yards) hunting weapons. The 26” barrel Henry 45-70 I hunted with in Alaska last year was achieving 3” groups at 100 yards with both Federal and Hornady ammo, so accuracy better than minute-of-deer in this thumper cartridge is a welcome surprise, emphasis being on the surprise. The SBL is very accurate, with surprisingly tight groups. I have read about many shooters getting MOA and even sub-MOA accuracy out of the 1895 SBL. Apparently even the old problematic “Remlin” 1895s had outstanding barrels. The new Ruger Marlin barrels are apparently just as good, if not better. This lever action gun provides accuracy expected of high quality bolt actions. Impressive and most welcome.
Its Open Sights
Yes, I like open sights, as you might guess. They are all I use and have ever used, and the factory supplied rear peep sight and neon yellow front sight work very well for me, especially at the fairly close distances I intend to hunt at with this gun. The sights are light years better than the Henry 45-70 I hunted with last year. That Henry had a cheap and flimsy rear sight that would constantly readjust itself out of true, which is downright dangerous in the grizzly country I was in. And yes, I was constantly surrounded by grizzlies, and so I kept checking and fidgeting with the Henry’s flimsy rear sight. This Marlin’s rear peep sight is more rugged, but it really sticks out and so it is vulnerable to catching on things and hard hits. It could use some sort of protective arch or band, which given how ugly the Picatinny rail already is, I don’t see how such a protective piece of steel could hurt the gun’s looks any more.
Built for Speed and Comfort
The SBL is fast shooting, and despite lobbing huge hunks of ballistic lead downrange, it is also comfortable to shoot. Probably due to its weight and the purposefully big and soft butt pad, I did not notice any real hard kick from this gun. But then again I am a very large framed guy with not only a lot of muscle but also a generous helping of blubber, which is like a giant shock absorber. Consider that I also shoot a .577 NE comfortably, so don’t be looking for reports of “the 45-70 kicks like a mule” here on this blog. I find it quite pleasant at the range and also hunting.
The 45-70 is No 50-110, OK?
Due to the SBL becoming so popular, much has been made about the 45-70 as some sort of atomic cartridge. Well, it’s not. The 45-70 certainly is no 50-110, which with modern smokeless powders really is a powerful stomper, and it is no .50 Alaskan, either. The 45-70 Government cartridge is not a “Jurassic” dinosaur killer, and in most ways it doesn’t come close to “boring” 30-06 performance.
For God’s sake and Goodness Gracious, it is not anywhere close to something so powerful. Yes, this 1870s black powder case is big compared to the modern bottle-necked cases we hunters mostly use today, and it has a lot of room for powder. And yes, it holds large bullets that are double or even triple the size of the typical 120-180 grain bullets we typically use for big game these days.
But way too many, if not almost all, the online video reviews of the 45-70 cartridge and this 1895 SBL rifle are done by young men wearing cool guy sunglasses and tight short sleeved shirts that showcase their pumped up biceps, bragging up how monstrously “powerful” this “howitzer” cartridge supposedly is (accompanied by the inevitable macho heavy crunching rock guitar musak). The implication being that they are powerful and macho as heck, and you can be, too, if you just own this rifle.
So powerful, so awesome, so macho. Barf, puke. No.
Wrong, guys. Holy smokes, people, calm down. Put down the new toy and get a grip on reality. Stop and back up to the technical reality that simple science imposes on this 45-70 cartridge and on every other cartridge, for that matter. Put away the emotional nonsense, the ego, the lame desire to be seen as cool, or tough, or macho. The 45-70 is not that powerful, nor is it macho. Owning a lever action 45-70 won’t make you cool or make your you-know-what bigger.
We Americans do like our big trucks, big engines, big homes, big landscapes, and big bore firearms, no doubt. And I am all for all of that. But the 45-70 is just nowhere near what so many people promote it as, some kind of crushingly, overwhelmingly powerful “Jurassic dinosaur killer.” Even its modern loadings in the updated Speer and Hornady manuals pale in comparison to the apparently boring old .30-06 and even the .308. And 45-70 brass is prohibitively expensive, not to mention the high cost of better factory loads, which are somewhere about two fifty per round.
In short, an American deer and black bear hunter can get much better performance and value with any off-the-shelf 30-caliber rifle than with the 45-70. The 45-70 requires an awful lot of tweaking and handloading to get it into the realm of impressive. And even at its most impressive, it is still overshadowed by the boring old .30-06 for general duty. And the .270 Winchester, .308 Winchester, and proprietary Marlin rounds like the .338, too, for that matter.
Sorry to all the macho strutting young bucks on YouTube, but your new toy is not that big or impressive! Please don’t cry!
Where the 45-70 shines these days is with just a few modern smokeless powders married to just a couple really modern solid bullets, in a fast handling, fast shooting, high quality lever gun like this 1895 SBL, at relatively close range, for fast follow-up shots on tougher-than-average critters that can stomp and eat you if they get too close.
That’s it.
That little description above is the narrow application for the 45-70 cartridge that is superior to most other sporting cartridges. Put a big, heavy 50-caliber hunting round in a Winchester Model 71 lever action, or in a Winchester 1886 lever action, and the 45-70 again falls into a far distant second choice for big and dangerous game.
But neither the old Model 71 nor the Model 1886 are made in stainless steel by one of the best gun makers.
And this reason above is why I have selected the 1895 SBL in 45-70 to be my new bear hunting rifle in Alaska and for bear drives in Pennsylvania: It is rugged, fast shooting, and potentially very hard hitting at close range with solid bullets.
If I am sitting on a hillside calling to black bears, which might require a 100-150 yard shot, then I will use a longer range bolt gun or double rifle with a flatter trajectory. One guy I know of has used the 1895 SBL for big game in Africa, but again, using a very narrowly designed combination of powder and high tech solid bullet at short range (see below).
If I were simply hunting black bears in open country, at ranges up to 200 yards, with occasional grizzlies around, like southern Alaska, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, the 1895 SBL would not be my choice. Not even in my top five choices. Rather, a more powerful rifle with a flatter trajectory would be my first choice, such as a .300-.338-.375 magnum bolt action. If I were hunting black bear way down the southern Alaskan coast, like on the islands from Juneau south, where brown bears (grizzlies) are far fewer and black bears are much more numerous, then I would take a .308 or .30-06 and dispense with the need to cover myself in case of short range ambush charges from the really dangerous bears in heavy Alaskan jungle cover.
Summed up perfectly by a federal wildlife employee who hunts big game and also dangerous game with the 1895 SBL in Alaska and Africa, who goes by the online name Tundra Tiger, “It is true: [the 45-70 Govt.] comes with a shorter effective range than some other calibers. However, if one chooses to recognize its limitations and work within them, I don’t see what the issue is [with hunting dangerous game with it].” He has taken some dangerous game in Africa with his Marlin lever action 45-70 using just one bullet, the Cutting Edge Bullets 325-grain solid brass bullet (https://cuttingedgebullets.com/458-325gr-lever-gun-safari-solid).
In Closing
I am sure that plenty of people can and will find a way to make the 1895 SBL in 45-70 round their home defense gun, their everyday big game hunting round, whatever, and that is fine. Why not, it’s a gun, which is better than nothing for self defense. It is far better than a baseball bat, which like all striking or stabbing weapons requires you to close with your opponent. And it is far better than calling 9-1-1 and waiting for your spirit to watch the EMTs zipping up your corpse in a body bag while the police show up to write a report about the crime scene. Lever actions are fast, and being mechanical, they are reliable and theoretically less susceptible to jamming problems than semi-autos, which are notorious for jams.
And lever actions have always made good hunting guns.
For most of my big game hunting, I prefer old guns shooting black powder at relatively close range that pack the same punch as the modern 45-70, or more, or more modern but still old centerfire guns of blued steel and aged walnut shooting modern bullets at woods range, in calibers like the 7x57R, 243, 308, 270, and 30-06. Like within 100 yards, without all of the unnecessary hard work trying to figure out how to make my short barreled lever action firing huge hunks of 45-caliber lead and brass with rainbow-shaped trajectories into performing like a flat shooting bolt action in a caliber nearly half the size of the 45-70.
AGAIN, this gun was purchased for just three reasons: 1) It is constructed of the most weather-resistant, durable materials possible in a firearm, stainless steel and high tech epoxy laminated wood, 2) the lever action is extremely fast, much faster than a bolt action and even than a pump action, and finally, 3) when properly loaded with the proper high-penetration solid bullets propelled by generous and safe amounts of powders like R7 and IMR4198, this modern 45-70 lever action provides the best combination of a practical stalking rifle for black bear in Alaska with a practical emergency short range defense weapon against grizzlies.
Loaded hot with the proper (heavy high quality solids going 2,000-2,100 fps) bullet, the 45-70 does its best better than most calibers within 50 yards. Only a short-barreled 12-gauge pump shotgun accurately shooting high tech heavy slugs is a superior, equally reliable defensive long arm than the properly loaded 45-70 lever action. But I would not take that same 12 gauge short barreled shotgun bear hunting, because it is really limited in range, even more limited than the 45-70.
AGAIN, I bought this gun only for a) hunting in Alaska, which is brutal on firearms, and, thus, where a stainless steel gun will do best, and b) for bear drives in northcentral Pennsylvania, where fastest-possible shooting (i.e. lever action) at short ranges in thick laurel are the norm. Our PA bear drives are brutal on guns, boots, clothing, and every other piece of gear you have. One of my friends broke his brand new Remington 7600 pump action 30-06 stock in half on one of our bear drives. Alaska is also known for eating firearms alive, especially the southeastern coastal strip, where endless rain and salt air will corrode and rust blued metal, and mildew and rot traditional walnut stock wood, in just a few days. So the Marlin 1895 SBL really fits the bill in these two tough hunting environments.
I am presently testing my own hand loads using 16:1 and 20:1 alloy cast bullets and the Cutting Edge Bullets 325 grain solid brass bullet at 1950-2100 fps. Field reports from Alaska to Africa indicate that this CEB load in the 1895 SBL is more than adequate for both hunting black bears and also for defending against attacking brown bears at powder-burn range (and yes, grizzly attacks happen frequently).
Readers interested in understanding how modern (i.e. last ten to fifteen years) bullet technology in an 1870s cartridge like the 45-70 creates a lot more flexibility and dangerous game ability (i.e. grizzly/ brown bears in Alaska) should read the following online discussion threads:
https://www.africahunting.com/threads/45-70-for-dangerous-game.6852/
And for those hunters and bystanders interested in what a properly loaded 45-70 lever action rifle can achieve against dangerous game, Vince Lupo’s reports about his African safaris are amazing: https://www.leverguns.com/articles/lupo/lupo.htm
p.s. Men and Their Personal Weapons
Men have always cherished certain weapons. A boar spear that saved your life once, a sword that swings just perfectly in battle, a custom hunting knife made specially for us and used to gut and butcher our hunted game many times, or a well-made trusty poniard on the hip in case of trouble while at market. For thousands of years we men clutch these things close, reflexively place our hand upon them when at rest, and stare at them lovingly from across the room, because they reliably work for us daily and we can always rely on them in a tight spot. And because these weapons speak to us, us men, through their beauty, and because very often they speak for us, they come to represent us. To stand for us. We identify ourselves through them.
And so I say, you men on YouTube and elsewhere are in really good company, in your admiration for the stainless steel and laminate Marlin lever actions, like this 1895 SBL. Their robust build, certain mechanical reliability, and extremely durable materials are all big draws in a world of semiauto jams and broken parts and surprise rust at just the wrong moment. This gun is the equivalent of a good heavy steel-tipped spear a thousand years ago, and it just feels right, hefts right, in our hand.
Deer I stalked and shot at 151 yards this week with the Marlin 1895 SBL. The 325-grain FTX bullet passed through lungs and stomach without slowing. Custom knife by JRJ John Johnson.
Beautiful Central PA landscape in winter
Winter sunset over the Susquehanna River
Exhibit A in macho gun reviews. Joe Cool shades in the shade. Biceps. Etc. Unfortunately, this rifle will not make his or your you-know-what bigger.
A 45-70 dangerous game round I loaded, using the 325-grain solid brass bullet by Cutting Edge Bullets. This is for stopping a grizzly
Movie review: “Avatar – Way of the Water”
If you can and also desire to endure three solid hours of anti-White racism, anti-Americanism, anti-Capitalism, and a whole host of other “woke” evils being jammed up your butt, by white American capitalists no less, then go spend your money to see “Avatar – Way of the Water.”
One of my kids persuaded me to go see it with him, encouraging me to do so in order to confirm in person my own impression that the movie was crap. Well, for twenty-eight bucks, I can now absolutely confirm by personal experience that Avatar is what many people might already think it is, and what I thought it is, and that is garbage propaganda and crap.
Avatar- The Way of Water is just crap. It is also a theft of major themes of at least half a dozen major movies, including Star Wars.
Nazi Germany was largely built on this movie’s same kind of colorful propaganda, however, so do not dismiss Avatar. Oh sure, Nazi Germany did not live beyond a dozen years, its “thousand year Reich” blown to bits in an orgy of mass murder and retaliation by Germany’s victims. So the woke world of Caucasian slaves serving communist overlords and whatever else pure crap Hollywood envisions for us won’t last very long either. But in Nazi Germany’s short twelve year time span, tremendous destruction was done to Europe and to the world. So, when the propaganda works, it works, and if you are on the receiving end of it, do not ignore it. Or, put another way, if you love a free America, you ignore this crap at your own peril. Like fentanyl and other scary drugs purposefully being allowed over America’s southern border by the current administration, it is powerful crap. Avatar is not innocuous. It is damaging America, as it is intended.
We all know that Hollywood is a cesspit of hideously evil people playing dress-up and make-believe on behalf of China, and Avatar has found a new way to use its power of evil suggestion with only voice actors. This movie, like its predecessor, is Computer Generated Imagery. Fake. Basically anthropomorphized Gumby people presented to us as human-enough-like humanoids that we can relate to them. The Gumby movie characters all have really nice big white teeth smiles, of course. Friendly racists.
In a nutshell, an American Marine Corps colonel, Miles Quaritch, is symbolic of everything that is supposedly bad in our life today – hoo-rah toxic macho masculinity, guns, military, America, technological culture, meat eating, natural resource extraction, Western invasions of supposedly “indigenous” lands, and overall Man vs. Nature. This very white Colonel Quaritch is the ultimate antagonist bad guy with a thoroughly American personality (in reality, the real Miles Quaritch Marine Corps people are right now protecting America and Americans so that people can enjoy their high end lifestyle and also continue to virtue signal about how aligned with the oppressed they are). We are instructed to hate him, because everything he does is wrong and bad and evil and…well, if you are trying to demonize an entire ethnic group, you would heap upon them all of the ills that he suffers from and brings to others, and Avatar does that to white people via Miles Quaritch.
That, despite the fact that in this Avatar movie, Quaritch returns to life as one of the genetically modified, lab-grown blue humanoids, along with a cadre of fellow former US Marines likewise re-animated, all of whom look the same as the natives, but who suffer from the same “bad” thinking as the white people they used to be. It seems that regardless of his skin color, Colonel Quaritch and his American Marines still represent everything that is bad: Bad ideas, bad whites, bad identity, bad values, bad desires, etc. while they invade this Garden of Eden planet where everyone and every thing lives in kumbayah.
Pitted against Colonel Quaritch and his cadre of all-bad all-white guys and gals, are a bunch of tall humanoids colored green and blue, depending upon which area of their planet they inhabit in their traditional pre-technology tribal ways. These things are presented as the innocent indigenous sentient beings whose sole purpose is to hunt, fish, make love, and get stoned together and also get stoned with the animals around them on deep love psychology via emotional tethers growing from their heads. Yes, yes, this is meant to demonstrate the peaceful interconnectedness of all things. Gaia. Peace. Their leader Jake was once a moron white guy, but he changed, and morphed into a blue guy at one with Gaia and all the animals.
None of this makes sense, logically, nor would it have made any sense to a Lakota warrior trying to take a squirming Pawnee’s scalp with a dull stone knife, but if functional Americans over the age of fifty are wondering what the hell just happened to America and why we can’t find young people to work at our businesses and why young people prefer to live in a virtual fantasy land rather than work and volunteer and support themselves and why they prefer to get useless college degrees and follow evil corporate media and pretend to be victims while drinking ten dollar coffees, then you need look no further than this movie, Avatar – Way of the Water.
This movie’s illogical woke bullshit is the reality our American kids believe they are living in.
Never mind that the movie’s plot has more holes than a piece of Swiss cheese, it is the feewings it induces that we all must entertain and service most. Feelings of hate for traditional White American males, feelings of hate for the people who mine natural resources for us (which logically must also include the little black African slave children digging in the rare earth mineral and cadmium mines right now so that child actor Greta Thunberg can pose with an EV car that is primarily an explosive bomb that only drives a short distance on Mondays, but don’t tell the makers of this movie), feelings of hate for technology, for human migrations, etc. etc. etc.
Never mind if the blue and green people migrated to the planet (we are briefly shown the giant rusted ribs of whatever spaceship they all arrived in), and killed each other to establish territories. Human migration and killing for territory is only wrong when white people do it. Dontcha know.
About the movie’s ridiculous plot: Why the hell is it OK for the blue people to hunt and eat animals, but it is wrong for anyone else to kill said animals?
And where the hell were all the green people during the end of the last fight? It is like they dropped off the face of their water world with spears held high, at the most crucial moment, and just gave up and went home to eat some dead fish that were once friends but had recently become food. Meanwhile the blue people were locked in a life-and-death fight with high technology that could easily have been won if the green people had stuck around to fight, which they said they were there to do. Crickets. Big plot hole.
My criticism of this racist and childish cartoon movie could fill buckets, rivers, oceans, entire planets, but my biggest observation about it is that it is effective propaganda designed to corrode America from the inside out, to demonize and pit people against white Americans. Probably done at the behest of the communist Chinese, America’s greatest enemy. Go ahead and mock Avatar, but don’t underestimate its negative effect on young Americans and America.
Or go ahead and mock me, late to the show here, but no one pays me to write this blog, and I do as much as I can with the time I have. And in that vein, sorry about the mis-alignment of the photos below. No idea why this happens, and I do everything I can to eliminate it and get them properly aligned.
Character “Jake” the once White guy who became a blue guy, here high on the Earth Mother (Gaia), no lie
Mrs Jake, also high on the Earth Mother and the oneness of all life (what movies have we heard this from before)
There are black blue people and Asian blue people, all opposed to the White people
Lots of current teenage lingo and hookem horns type hand signals meant to appeal to teens
US Marine Corps colonel Miles Quaritch, the representative white guy everyone racist and woke is supposed to hate. He actually looks a lot like my buddy Ron Boltz
Review of Cousin T’s pancake mix
Lots of people are voting with their money and purchases these days, buying things from people and companies that are not at war against us or against our freedoms.
For example, “My Pillow” is a national brand of sleep/ bedtime stuff like pillows, comforters etc that was once carried in places like Bed, Bath and Beyond, and Target. But because the owner of My Pillow said some patriotic things and challenged a blatantly stolen 2020 election, anti-freedom companies like Bed, Bath and Beyond and Target stopped carrying his high quality products. But online buyers picked up the slack, and instead of buying My Pillow at retail outlets like those mentioned above, they began buying it direct via the Internet.
The owner of My Pillow says his sales have never been this high.
Similarly, Terrence Williams is a humorous black guy with a humorous personality and an honest wit. And so when he began openly questioning the white liberal Democrat narrative that has de facto enslaved American blacks and destroyed the American black family and their communities for the past seventy years, who else but white liberal Democrats sought to blacklist (“cancel”) Terrence and drive him from the public square. White liberal Democrat bastions YouTube and FaceBook began censoring his speech, although his was nowhere near as strongly worded as the strident and highly protected speech broadcast widely by white liberal Democrats on those same social media sites.
Instead, Terrence found other venues to share his humor, like Rumble. Terrence also has branched out into something he apparently enjoys a lot, food. He now has his own line of pancake mixes, among other things. And so I am here to review it and share my experiences cooking with and eating his “Cousin T’s” buttermilk pancake mix.
In a word, Cousin T’s buttermilk pancake mix is outstanding. It is literally the very best pancake/ biscuit mix I have ever owned, bought, cooked with, or eaten. And I have tried everything, including the ubiquitous Bisquick, Kodiak, and Hungry Jack.
In our family, I am known for my Sunday morning pancake fest. We eat berry pancakes only with real Grade B maple syrup that we either make from our own maple trees, or that we buy by the gallon from Pennsylvania and New York producers. I have tried to make my own pancakes from scratch, and they are usually OK, but they lack a certain pizzazz that the commercial pancake mixes have nailed down and that serve as their signature selling point. And so for decades I have used a variety of pancake mixes, until now.
Now, I am devoted to just Cousin T’s. And a quick read of the ingredients will tell you exactly why Cousin T’s pancake mix tastes so good: It has only premium types and grades of natural foods, like rye flour (found in none of the competitors’ mixes), which adds a hearty and poignant flavor. What is missing from the Cousin T’s ingredients are all the chemical preservatives, artificial flavors and colors etc that seem to be standard in all of the others. None of us will miss those “ingredients,” because they are bad for our bodies.
Cousin T’s is a carefully thought out blend of 100% natural ingredients, and the taste shows it.
Presently I can only purchase Cousin T’s products online, and the shipping adds real cost to it, about double. But I am OK with this, because I am getting a premium product from a company that supports my freedom of choice, freedom of thought, freedom of association, and freedom of speech. Hopefully Cousin T’s will be picked up by a national grocery chain like Giant or Wegman’s, so that the shipping cost is greatly diminished and the happiness of delicious Sunday morning pancakes can be more widely shared across America.
Try Cousin T’s, you will definitely like it like our family does.
Compare the wholesome ingredients of Cousin T’s to those of two major competitors
Baking peach cobblers using our own homemade peach preserves from our peach trees and Cousin T’s pancake mix
Finished peach cobblers using Cousin T’s pancake mix. The white on the left cobbler is sugar, which I coat the top with before baking
Two young men eating Cousin T’s blueberry pancakes for dinner
Movie review: “White Tiger”
When we think of Russia today and now, our mind might wander off into brutal poisonings of ex-spies across international borders, brutal assassinations of journalists inside Russia, brutal repressions of Chechen independence movements, brutal invasions of South Ossetia, Ukraine, and Georgia (THAT Georgia, not our Georgia), poorly chosen relationships with Iran and Syria, and the current czar riding around bare-chested on a horse with a rifle slung over his back.
Perhaps it was always thus. But if we think and search back a hundred years or more, we will stumble upon buried treasure in the farthest reaches of Russia.
Yes, it is true, Russia was not always just a military force to be reckoned with, it was also a significant cultural center of the very highest magnitude, the very highest achievement. World class music, literature, arts and crafts, poetry, ballet, and so on all were major hallmarks of the Russians.
Not of the oppressed Soviet satellite states, but the actual Russian people themselves.
Rachmaninoff, Dostoyesky, Faberge, and so on, so many great minds contributing in a singularly unique way, native to Russian culture.
Russians had this knack for art that you would not necessarily see if you looked at the simple surface of their culture or landscape. Behind the eightball on technology, Russian writers and poets and musicians bedazzled Westerners with their brilliance and inspiration.
That all started to die in fits and starts after the violent 1917 revolution led by the Democrat Party of that day and place, but nonetheless art persisted until the 1950s, when Soviet socialist control firmly held every thing and every person in its crushing grasp.
To dissent from all that big government with a pink pussy hat or with a snarky hashtag was unthinkable. Not that people wouldn’t try to do it, but the Soviet thought police, much the same as our own politically correct thought police in America today, would catch the thought crime even before it had taken physical form, and, as our own thought police openly wish they could do, WHOOSH, off to a starvation diet in Siberia went that ‘evil’ free thinker.
I am not sure that the Soviets used the words “sexist,” “racist,” homophobe,” “Islamophobe,” and other overdone American generalities meant to crush dialogue and debate, but if they could have used these terms, they would have. Different words then, but the same anti-democracy process then and now.
So for the past seventy years Russia has had an especially harsh Russian winter, art-wise, because of the Soviets and then their control freak successors, whatever Mr. Putin’s political party is named.
To be an artist in that Russian cultural winter was to walk around every day muzzled, daring not to say much less think your own creative thoughts. Too much was at stake.
But somewhere, somehow, that beautiful old Russian voice began to quietly break through the repressive walls. Finding acceptable subjects and means to convey them became a new form of creativity in and of itself.
Nationalism, patriotism, history are all legitimate subjects of artistic creativity, and so Russian artists have adapted. Very, very well. Albeit with throwback Soviet-style imagery, which is lamentable. Gosh, if the Russians could only be our friends…the things we could achieve together.
And so here we now have a truly artistic Russian movie we can all be proud of, in the mould of the old-time Russian artistic capacity. It is called White Tiger and debuted about 18 months ago. I have been wanting to write about it since watching it back then, but as we know, the past 18 months in America have been pretty intense. Every time I thought I could breathe again, some new issue would pop up. There was more compelling competition for writing space and creativity of my own.
At least this is how I have experienced the past 18 months.
If you are afflicted with a love of liberty, as I am, then you have shared my somewhat anxious condition as the American “deep state,” or Obama holdovers, or career bureaucrats, or whatever you want to call them, have attempted to reverse the outcome of a presidential election they thought they would win and still cannot stomach the thought of losing, by any means necessary. Which means illegal, unethical, immoral, un-American, anti-democratic means.
That all seems to be unwinding now.
And so now, for this moment, I get to bask in the glow of art, thanks to the Russians. And I really mean it, thank you. Seeing this movie took me way back in time to when my own mind was creative and artistic.
Dear Russians, I lift my glass to you: Tvoye zdorovye!
White Tiger is on its face a war movie set in World War Two. It is about Russians versus Germans, good guys versus bad guys, the Eastern European version of cowboys versus Indians. It is also about tanks and heavy armor, about technological superiority versus the grass roots spirit to survive, and history. Lots of history. And lots of action.
At its core, this movie is mythological and Darwinian, with a lot of symbolism, not the least of which is the theme music, an artfully done refrain of Wagner’s pilgrim’s chorus.
If you care to pay careful attention, and walk a mile in a Russian tank tread, you will end up being impressed by this low-budget, high-performance film.
Briefly summed up with no spoilers, the unlikely (and yet so likely…there’s that symbolism thing) Russian hero is reborn, a plausible enough biological fluke consistent with species adapting.
He goes on to learn his enemy’s ways, to anticipate his next moves, and in the end, he goes on a ghostly chase into both past and future, bound up in one of Russia’s most enduring identities: Not German!
And speaking of German, Germany, and World War Two, no better representation of Adolf Hitler has been captured in cinema than the movie’s very last few minutes, where Satan’s boots on the ground has a heartfelt confession with his sponsor, who sits patiently listening in the shadow.
And as an aperitif, try this Russian music to settle your soul before bed time.
Diary entry for a day in Central PA
With two business meetings up north and a pile of work to do even farther, the drive up the Susquehanna Valley the other day was enjoyable because so many of the trees still held color along the river banks and out on the islands. Yellows and oranges reflected in the water, and so did the blue sky. Quite peaceful and serene. Not a bad way to spend time driving. Especially when I consider how most Americans spend their time on the road — miserable gridlock, hideous urban concrete jungles, rude drivers. My driving is mostly a Zen experience. That is quintessential Central PA, after all.
Catawissa, PA, is not really on anyone’s destination planner, being snug between ragged coal country, fertile farm country, and pretty river bottom land, and well off the beaten path. To go to Catawissa, you really have to want to go, or have a real clear reason for going. The one horse there moved on long ago, and is now pulling some Amishman’s buggy across the river. Catawissa is daggone quiet in a countryside that is…well, really quiet.
But Catawissa is worth visiting for one simple reason: Ironmen Arms & Antiques is located there.
Jared and Tom have recently opened Ironmen Arms, what is and would have to be the nicest gun room in Pennsylvania (with apologies to Joel in Ligonier), filled with militaria, historic artifacts, and of course, fine firearms. The finest firearms, for the most discriminating collectors. Really high quality guns, like matching pairs (yes, pairs, not just one pair) of Parker shotguns, sequential pairs of high grade Parkers, and high grade LC Smiths, European double rifles, and on and on. For those of you bidding on the mint condition Remington 700 BDL in .223, I can tell you after holding it and inspecting it at length, it is every bit as perfect as it appears on line. If you are a serious collector, that gun is as good as it gets. The Remington BDL is becoming a collector’s item, oddly, because plastic stocks and stainless steel seem to be all the rage now, as soul-less and devoid of personality, art, and craftsmanship as those combinations are. I have no idea how someone hunts with these new guns, because I, myself, have deeply personal relationships with each of my firearms. To achieve that, they’ve got to look good as well as function properly. I’m not disgracing some wild animal by terminating it with anything but the highest combination of form and function. Aesthetics are necessary, because hunting isn’t just killing. It’s a statement about one’s values. Maybe I’m an “artiste.”
Or maybe it’s just a sign of my advancing age, or the arrival of The Age of China and All Things Plastic. I refuse to give in to sterile surgical steel and hard plastic, when I can hold the body of a beautiful tree in my hands. Apparently I am in good company with Jared and Tom, because they, too, like old wood and new steel, and old wood and old steel, too.
In this economic environment, entrepreneurs like Jared and Tom are brave. But they offer things that are not easy to get by any standard, and which are in high demand. And they are both nice men, interested in the fellow gun nerds of the world, and willing to share their bounty and knowledge with you.
So, if you find yourself traversing Pennsylvania on I-80, and you are passing by Bloomsburg, call ahead and set up an appointment with Ironmen Arms. Stop in and spend a half hour, or an hour, make some new friends, and buy an old Japanese sword, a rare bayonet, or a new rifle for that hunt of a lifetime. I know I will be back.
Ironmen Arms: 570 356-6126, jjvpo@verizon.net, 561 Numidia Drive, Catawissa, PA 17820. Their excellent website is at http://www.ironmenarms.com/
Ultimate Prosaic: What The Heck Happened to American Made Hunting Boots?
America made the best hunting boots, a fact known as surely as Einstein was the smartest person ever and Raquel Welch was the hottest babe, ever.
Until now. Now, hunting boots by even the most storied makers like Danner and Irish Setter are made in….where else…China.
Call me confused, but let me ask you, Are the Chinese big on hunting? Do they know how to hunt, what to wear hunting, are they gear hounds, etc. ? My sense, apparently now shared by a lot of other American hunters and outdoorsmen, is that the Chinese really do not know hunting or hunting boots. In fact, the Chinese suck at hunting (although I once watched a video of Chinese soldiers happily picking off gentle, unarmed Tibetans who were walking through the Himalayan snows to escape their China-occupied country, so I guess the Chinese are good at murdering, but that’s unrelated to hunting), if their products are any indication.
The proof that the Chinese stink badly at hunting is that they keep on manufacturing hunting boots, and the hunting boots keep on getting returned by increasingly surly buyers. Label says waterproof. Wallet says you just paid $200 for high quality, waterproof boots. Your wet feet say “These ain’t waterproof.” And back to the store they go.
Some guys (and ladies, too), are returning three pairs of the same model before they give up on either that model or on the entire brand. A lot of people seem to be migrating toward spending no less than $300, and easily up to $375, on a pair of hunting boots that they know will not fail them when they are alone, a long, long way from civilization, and dependent on their footwear to get them around and back home at the end.
Does three hundred and fifty bucks sound like a lot of money for hunting boots to you? Holy smokes, it sounds like a lot of money to me. A pair of fancy dress shoes by the best makers rarely go for that amount, even on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Something is afoot here, friends, and it is not pretty.
On the one hand, a lot of hunters are kvetching about their low-quality boots online and in product reviews. So hunting as a sport is clearly taking a hit. On the other hand, Chinese boot manufacturers are hazing hunters, forcing many of them to spend a small fortune on the only American-made hunting boots, thereby restoring comfort to their feet and honor to our crumbling nation. I am at that point myself, having purchased, worn, and returned several expensive pairs of boots by the most storied names in boot making history.
The question is, with boots this expensive, are guys going to begin comparing boots at camp? That will make me feel quite uncomfortable. The last thing I want is to be associated with effete city slicker behavior. It’s like pollution in a pristine environment. It’s a Chinese plot to destroy hunting, one way or another. God help us.