Archive → October, 2026
Ruger is about to be eaten alive
While the American gun world is presently enthralled by the ATF’s latest effort to deep-six the NFA and emasculate the GCA, and make SBRs and sawed-offs and suppressors available for all, we have something much more prosaic to discuss here. And it sucks.
Bill Ruger, Sr., was a famously driven man, a true American, who from his earliest adult years made unique, high quality guns that he wanted to make. These were firearms not yet on the market by any other manufacturer, and with no indications that there ever would be a market for them. They were often modeled after guns that had at one time been centerpieces of the foreign sporting world, like elegant, accurate British and Scottish-made Farquarson action single shots. And yet the markets followed him. In fact, Bill Ruger created markets not just for his own guns, but for whole categories of guns that Americans had not shown interest in for a hundred years, if ever.
Like the Ruger #1, a single shot, based on the Henry/ Farquarson action. Simple, rugged, exceptionally accurate, capable of all kinds of Africa-scale rounds. He also made side-by-side shotguns, and over-under shotguns, when both were falling out of favor to blastemall semi-autos. In fact, many younger Americans had never actually seen a double barreled shotgun in person, when Ruger brought his Red Label onto the market. Like the Bearcat and subsequent revolvers, introduced at a time when cowboy-style guns were long out of style.
Bill Ruger adapted investment casting for many of his firearms, which saved a lot of money in laborious machining and turning raw stock. He revolutionized modern gun manufacturing so well that competing companies, like Colt, began chasing the new markets that Bill Ruger had opened, often adopting his manufacturing methods in part or in full.
One of my favorite rifles is a 1980s Ruger M77 RSI International .308, that is as light and as pointable as a stalk of goldenrod, as accurate as a laser, and easy to carry all day long. Because it is so exceptionally light, short, and handy, and has a thumb safety on the tang, it is exceptionally fast on snap shots while stalking deer and bear in the mountains. My M77 RSI has killed countless deer and one bear. But the challenge with the M77 RSI is that Ruger had the short, thin, finely tapered barrels milled with the scope mounts integral to the barrel. Like the Germans used to do (and occasionally still do) on their finest sporting rifles. While a fabulous little work of art, the manufacturing costs for this gun were too high, and it was discontinued in the early 1990s. Tang-safety M77s were made a few years more, and then the ridiculous wing safety was used on all subsequent M77s. No still hunting for you!
Recently, Ruger bought out the old Marlin machinery from the old Remington plant in Ilion, New York. I toured that factory about fifteen years ago, and what a loss that it is now gone, that the workers there are gone, that the Remington name is now gone from the town of its founding after more than two hundred years. Crappy or shady business practices caused the new-new-new Remington to fail, even though it produced many good products. Though the old Marlin 1895 was not well made in the Remington plant, with “Remlin” rifles pretty low on the totem pole.
Well, Ruger took the lever action world by storm when it resuscitated the Marlin 1895 a few years ago, in its state-of-the-art Mayodan, North Carolina plant. Flawless, incredibly accurate, reliable, rugged, this stainless lever gun in its original 45-70 became the go-to for Alaskan big game guides in grizzly country. It is the gun I take hunting in Alaska. I have killed several deer and a bear with mine. One shot kills, one at 160 yards with open sights (my eyes are aging and that kind of shooting just ain’t happening any more, sadly).
And Ruger has also continued to make all the oldies-but-goodies that are cornerstones of the gun owning world: The GP100 .357, .44 Mag Redhawk, .44 Mag Blackhawk, .45 Colt Vaquero, and Bearcat revolvers, the Ruger Number 1 single shot, and the M77 series of rifles, among others.
Ruger can continue to run a perfectly successful business making these “legacy” models, because while their markets are not on fire, like the 1895 is, they are steady. Their customers want them. Not by the truckload, but enough to keep several highly trained workers busy full-time, and money coming in steadily.
But Ruger is about to be eaten alive in a foreign corporate takeover, and the company has already notified its customers that it is dropping an awful lot of the oldies-but-goodies, including most of the revolvers. Whether this decision is a tactical retreat under the turtle shell by current ownership, in order to shed less-productive or under-performing, or expensive to make products, balance the books, and shield against the coming hostile takeover attempt, or is a giant flash increase in short-term profitability so that the takeover costs as much as it possibly can, who can say. The fact is, Beretta is gunning for Ruger, and it appears that they are likely to take over.
And Ruger is showing the signs of a prey animal. Tossing stuff overboard in an attempt to pick up speed as it flees its pursuer.
Forgive my national pride and my national interest bit, but I am not happy about losing another indigenous firearm manufacturing company to a foreign country. Yeah yeah yeah, Beretta is 500 and some years old. Whateva. Great. I like that. Good for Italy. But that means nothing of consequence to any of us Americans, when what we need are Ruger replacement parts easily obtainable here in America, sold to us by Americans on the phone.
Remington 3.0 went to the Great Gun Maker in the sky a few years ago. Winchester bounced back and forth between the Japanese and the Belgians, and now exists in some purgatorial form that occasionally shows up like a ghost, and then disappears back into the shadows, again. Colt has barely hung on, same for Smith & Wesson. America’s native gun makers are Henry, Taylor’s (which also imports quality Italian firearms), Barrett, a few other small shops specializing in hyper accurate sporting rifles. America needs all the gun makers it can get, making not just sporting weapons but military weapons, too. We cannot survive if we outsource our weapons acquisitions to foreign makers.
America needs Ruger. But it appears we are getting Beretta, and there is no way that firm is going to run the company the Bill Ruger way. Here comes the corporate slashing and bleeding, the loss of fabulous guns, and the loss of American jobs, in the name of maximum profit. Maybe Beretta wants a lever action shotgun, and is acquiring Ruger just for that. I guess that might be in the spirit of ol’ Bill.
Ruger’s M77 RSI International in .308, that has killed over a hundred deer in my hands, a bear, some other critters. Just recently topped with a now discontinued Leupold 1×5, perfect for the slow mountain still hunting I enjoy
Ruger Marlin 1895 in 45-70 with shed buck I shot in Dauphin County a few years ago. Laser accurate gun
Abandoned mine site in remote Alaska, five mile walk in from dead-end dirt road. Over a week of hunting this area, I saw moose and griz aplenty, heard a wolf pack howling, passed up on a smaller black bear I literally walked right up to and looked over. Having my own handloaded brass solids in the Ruger Marlin 1895 was the most reassuring feeling
Hunting in Alaska requires all kinds of layers, and waterproofs, rubber boots, and stainless rifles. The Ruger Marlin 1895 is my go-to gun for these trips
Oh Joni, you’re a mean ol’ granny but I like you
Aging hippie and outstanding musician Joni Mitchell became an American citizen this week. After sixty some years of living here, and benefiting from America, she finally became a citizen. She used her newfound freedoms and opportunities to immediately attack the guy responsible for her admission, President Trump.
It was the usual bad form, bad manners, lack of appreciation, and selfishishness of the political Left, who act like they were raised in caves by packs of wolves or lions.
Having been raised by hippies myself, which is like being raised by wolves, as well as being raised myself by an actual pack of wolves – no lie, absolute truth – I can both relate to much of Joni Mitchell’s music, enjoy much of her music, understand her weird counter-culturism, within the period that was her youth, while rejecting a lot of it for the corrosive immaturity it is, especially now, and also say “Joni, you are a mean old granny, but I like you.”
One of my favorite songs is Joni Mitchell’s “Carey,” which today serves as a time capsule or a time machine back to the freewheelin’ early 1970s. I recommend listening to it at least twice; once to hear the words, and twice to understand and envision them. If you binge listen to it a bunch of times, you are a normal and healthy person.
And while I am here lauding Joni Mitchell’s song, I would like to say that I wrote an eponymous apology letter recently. It is the epic apology letter of human history, and for the one young reader we have here, I can give you some advice: Follow your heart when you are young. Be like Joni Mitchell in that way, and go where your heart takes you. Be brave; do not let fear or uncertainty stand in your way. You will regret it. And if you do not regret it in your mature years, you have no heart, never did.
And Joni, honey, if you are a conservative when you are young, you have no heart, but if you are a liberal when you are old, you have no brain. You are still a hell of a talented musician, and please stop talking about politics. Forthalovagod.
Here are two versions of Carey: One where she gives a great on-stage introduction, and the produced version, which is easier on the ears, and thus easier on the mind creating mental images of 1970s Greek beaches… true freedom in a sense.
I saw China dumping today
Today, I saw tangible evidence of China just outright dumping its products at give-away prices, way below manufacturing cost. It was such a dramatic sight that it made me wonder why they are doing this. Come along with me on this trip, and see what conclusions you come to yourself about what we see together.
This morning I arrived at the Pine Run Auction in Linden, PA, good and early. Got my bidder card, #6, and walked around, looking at the items coming up for auction starting at 9:00am. Nearly everyone in attendence looked the same, dressed the same, was the same age. It was humorous, because when I threw on clothes this morning, I thought surely I would be overly rustic. Nope. We all looked the same, all the old rural northcentral Pennsylvania guys. Well, “old” is a relative thing; I was one of the younger men there. And the truly young were in their forties…..
Among the rusty old American farm machinery, tri-axles, crates of machinery attachments, tools, the almost-retired CAT excavators and the chipping and peeling John Deere bulldozers, lay piles, literally piles, heaps, of shrink-wrapped brand-new Chinese made machines. I mean piles. Brand new.
Being sold by the bushel.
Mini excavators and their extra attachments, mini skid steers, machines designed for the enterprising individual American man, sold for a few hundred dollars each. Barely their value as scrap steel. Photos below, if you doubt me.
Begging the question: What is China doing? Why are they taking these huge losses? Is China being beaten down by American tariffs, as our president said they would? Is China’s economy in free-fall? Is China in big economic trouble?
Or is China so wealthy and successful that they can afford to literally just give away their most expensive consumer products, at this huge loss? Imagine all of the myriad other little auction houses like Pine Run, all across America, all auctioning off these same machines, attachments, for pennies. This is a huge amount of steel, rubber, hydraulic fittings, and petroleum stuff being just wholesale dumped across America, by our biggest frenemy.
My impression is that this is the behavior of a drowning person.
Pine Run Auction of Linden, Pennsylvania, might be just one molecular data point in a galactic constellation of economic activity data points generated by one and a half billion human beings (America plus China). But there are calculus equations for calculating the slope (the direction) of a single data point, and while I can barely do one plus one type calculus, my gut instinct about today’s Pine Run Auction is that the Chinese economic slope is heading in a severe angle straight toward the planet’s surface in a huge flaming fireball.
Part of the bidding gang. A lot of bidders participated by Proxibid
Chinese mini excavators that should have cost thousands of dollars, sold for huundreds each.
Steel attachments for the Chinese-made excavators, many of which sold for more than the matching machine, because they will be re-fabricated and adapted for other American machines
Interesting concept, a mini-skid steer. Stacks of them. Selling for hundreds of dollars. How much did China pay to make these, versus how many pennies did they get back?
Cowboy hats and bib overalls, rural America, baby. Way off in the distance Bald Eagle Mountain is visible through the open bay doors
Oh, the ironies swirling around Columbus Day
Yesterday was Columbus Day, the traditional official day where Americans mentally or culturally mark the European discovery of what became America, also known as the New World.
Columbus Day has become a cultural battlefield, a friction point between cultural traditionalists, fair-minded empathists thinking of the displaced Amer-Indians, and cultural Marxists seeking to just tear down all of America and Western Civilization. That my calendars all say that yesterday was both Columbus Day and Indigenous People’s Day is evidence that the cultural Marxists are successful in penetrating into our national mindset and identity. This is more meaningful than the illegal defacement and vandalism of Christopher Columbus statues everywhere by knuckle-draggers performing as humans.
But oh, the rich ironies that surround all of this debate and discussion and deliberate, wilful ignorance on all sides!
Irony, one asks? Why yes, sh*t tons of ironic moments surround the Columbus debate.
First among them is the scientific fact (not theory) that Christopher Columbus was in fact…Chaim Colon… a Jew. How ironic is it that among the greatest modern tormentors of the Jews (the Spanish, and the Catholic Church) then became the greatest cheerleaders for one, when it suited their own cultural appropriation desires?
And is it not ironic that the evil 1492 Spanish total ethnic cleansing of the Jews from Spain, and the theft of their money, their businesses, their homes, and even their children, and their mass forced conversions and burning alive at the stake for religious “thought crimes,” then resulted in one of these same Jews fleeing the Spanish crime wave, and in his flight with a large crew of Jews aboard the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, Columbus ended up locating a large and largely uninhabited continent upon which all abused people – Celts, Protestants, and Jews – could find refuge?
And was it not ironic that the barbaric Spanish Inquisition, which was really just a mass sadism, rape, pillage, and steal scheme by the Church (led by the ironically appropriately named Queen Isabella, which is the Latin name for Jezebel, the notoriously evil pagan Jewish queen of Biblical times), was so evil that it ended up creating the Protestant Reformation in response?
And that those same fleeing Protestants then populated Columbus’ “New World” and founded the free and prosperous America that we all know and love? That then relies upon the Jewish-Catholic Columbus as its modern day patron saint and national symbol?
Quite a cycle of ironies, stacked on top of one another.
And about this “Indigenous People’s Day” thingy bob: Who are these Amer-Indians? I mean yeah, we all know they most likely pre-dated the arrival of Europeans, but where did they come from, originally?
ASIA!
As if Asia is any closer to America than Europe…the take-away here being that the American Indians are themselves migratory transplants in America, also from a distant continent. They are, in effect, no different than Christopher Columbus, the Protestant Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock and Jamestown, or the subsequent waves of Italian and Irish and European immigrants.
I dunno, but maybe one human migration is the same as another? And if Europeans being here in America is some sort of huge racial crime, then what do we say about the mass invasion of Europe by non-Europeans? Should only fair-skinned indigenous Europeans inhabit Europe? They are the natives there, after all.
Native land is native land is native land, and trying to say that one native land is off limits to subsequent human migration, while the other native land should be wide open, is racially discriminatory. Which I think is actually the whole point of this cultural Marxism attack on Columbus Day and America’s Western heritage. If you ask me, it smells like an imperialistic Han Chinese plot to keep the Asian migration to America wide open, and the undermining of Western freedoms ongoing….
Whole new meaning to “October Surprise”
“October Surprise” is a phrase associated with last-minute, last-ditch, late-in-the-game efforts to damage political opponents right before the annual early November’s Election Day.
Usually based on outright lies, half truths, lies by omission, or some partial evidence of a candidate’s possible or implied failure of character or legality, the “October Surprise” is always cast as a dirty trick meant to make a strong candidate un-electable. An October Surprise is usually a fake smear, amplified by a partisan establishment media, though there are occasional last-minute information releases that are truthful.
Well, it is election season in America, and it is an important one, but tomorrow, October 7th, marks the other kind of “October Surprise.” Like the big, deadly attack that America experienced at Pearl Harbor in 1941, and which brought America directly into World War II. And while our subject October 7th was a surprise attack, and it resulted in a huge sadistic massacre of mostly civilians, it was not just about that one moment. Its implications are world-wide. Even though it occurred in one of the world’s smallest nations, inflicted upon one of the world’s tiniest groups of people.
Three years ago on October 7th, Islamic jihadis broke through the Israeli border near Gaza, and attacked friendly, trusting small villages and a world-love music festival (the Nova Festival). The invading Gazan jihadis committed unspeakable human rights violations, war crimes not seen since World War II, and sadistic atrocities that are unimaginable and even unbelievable to the normal person.
Unfortunately or fortunately, the Gazans proudly recorded their crimes, and the heart-breaking / soul-shocking footage is visible at a lot of websites. Babies burned alive in front of their parents, who were then raped and murdered. Lots and lots of gleeful torture by green-wearing Jihadis, who did the whole Allahu snackbar thing after each crime.
Islamic cruelty is not just a specially noted thing of past European history, or of our own 9-11 plane attack, or of the many crazy reports home from American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is something naturally organic to that desert culture, which we got to see most recently in the 2012 civil war in Syria. Well, all of it was replicated on the Hamas-led civilian attack on Israeli Jews on October 7th.
And while October 7th was supposedly about Gaza, a place the Israelis had completely abandoned in 2005, it was really the opening salvo in a world-wide jihad against the West. Just like Arch Duke Ferdinand’s murder started the dominoes that triggered World War One, it appears that Gaza’s October 7th surprise attack was the beginning of a highly prepared, well coordinated world-wide jihadi assault on Western Civilization.
If there were such a thing as a Muslim peace movement, three years ago would have been the time to see it rise to the occasion. Instead, our planet has been enveloped in a unified mass invasion of Western nations, a massed political attack on Western democracies by the Red-Green Alliance of Islamic jihadis and Marxists, jihadi candidates for Congress and US Senate in Michigan. Using democratic processes and institutions to achieve non-democratic sharia-compliant end results, October 7th triggered an avalanche of attacks on America and Western nations.
October 7th, 2023, was the October Surprise of all October Surprises. Small place, small beginning, but enormous shockwave with civilization-ending implications still building up steam right now.
Tomorrow is October 7th, the modern day Day of Infamy. Folks, ya better try to get everyone around you to wake up. Before it is too late. You don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy Levi’s Jewish rye bread, and you don’t have to be Jewish to understand the deep threat to your family implied in October 7th.
You are in a civilizational conflict, whether you realize it, or not, whether you like it, or not.
One good reason to vote for Scott Perry
Scott Perry is the current congressman in Central PA. Has been for something like ten years, maybe twelve…fourteen? As political careers go, Scott is just about to enter the “been around a long time” category, a category I am normally leery of, because long term career politicians always lose touch with their constituents. They become institutions in their own right, and use that institutional hold to self-enrich, while hardly ever doing The People’s business.
Career politicians usually slide into cruise control mode and make pretend about doing something, bloviating, and then go on long vcations.
The fact that Scott has to work hard and campaign hard in a competitive district in order to hold on to his seat is a good thing. It is good for him, because it keeps him honest and responsive, and because it forces him to listen to his constituents. It is good for us, his constituents.
Scott Perry has several different reputations, some I understand and some I just do not understand. Some of these are well-earned, for better and for worse, and some are just bitch-and-moan partisan politics, which I categorially reject. I can say that I have had conversations with Scott where we disagreed, and where we agreed.
One of his good (I think) reputations is as an independent maverick, an independent thinker, his own man, who operates away from political party oversight and control. It is this way of conducting himself that has earned him my vote.
Where each political party has its own constellation of circling sycophantic self-interested parasite groups, say, teacher’s unions for the Democrats and tobacco for Republicans (it is a toss-up which is worse for you, the teacher’s union or constant tobacco use), the unusually rare career political reps like Scott Perry have constructed their own unique support network that is tailored to their own/ his own unique way of advocating and voting. Their financial and political support structure is by nececssity grass roots, organic, natural, and personal. Not the kind of massive, illegal Communist Chinese support that officials like Mitch McConnell (R-KY) get. Or the massive, illegal Islamic Republic of Iran support that Barack Obama (D-Kenya) got.
Over the spring and summer, Congressman Perry did something that few other elected officials in either party did: He opposed Flock Cameras. Wow. This is a brave thing to do, especially in an election year. Takes real conviction and principle for any politician to take a stand against such a political and financial behemoth as Flock Cameras.
Something so powerful, that promises so much (fake) security, what could go wrong, right?
What are Flock Cameras? For those readers living in a cave (welcome to my own cave here, by the way, proud to say it) or in Rio Linda, and who do not know what Flock Cameras are, here is my perception of them:
Flock Cameras are a high technology evil portal to Hell, where, while of and on this earth, they are combining with artificial intelligence (nothing super about that, yet) to quickly bring the end of a free and Constitutional America and usher in the age of robot warfare against humans.
We have already seen the dystopian futuristic movies and read the books they are based on (1984, THX1138, Terminator, etc), to know what an all-seeing anti-privacy robot eye can do to humanity, to you. Well, Flock Cameras are the watching all-seeing surveillance eye sent by Satan to control us. This is no hyperbole, and it is refreshing to see that American citizens of all mindsets and policy thinking are now coalescing around opposing Flock Cameras.
And while lots and lots of elected officials in America were taking Flock Cameras cash, some above board and some apparently undisclosed, and signing very very illegal Non-Disclosure Agreements with the company so it could set up in thousands of communities around America, Scott Perry was one of the few, one of the early voices among elected officials, to say STOP THIS.
Scott Perry is up for election in a month. Some things he promotes I do not agree with, some things he votes for or submits legislation on I do agree with, such as his official opposition to Flock Cameras. Such a love-hate relationship is healthy with elected officials and constituents alike. But then again, this is the thinking person’s approach to politics and policy. People who are trained seals clapping and barking for their partisan “team” will not understand this kind of critical thinking approach to life.
If you are a central PA voter trying to figure out whether to vote for Scott Perry, I recommend voting Yes. If for no other reason he had the balls and principle to stand apart from the big money pack and stake out policy territory popular with The People, but unpopular with elected officialdom. Scott said No to Flock Cameras, and he has thus earned my Yes vote next month.