JAB

Wow - when did Gecko45 leave the tactical retail response team to take a job as an ordinary cop? I guess he was tired of cops getting all the glory when he and his team were the real heroes. Was the armored vehicle in question possibly an armored golf card or maybe a hardened Segway? Are you sure it was an actual police vehicle or did it maybe have Mall of America painted on the side? Some of you guys mentioned that such gear might be okay if serving a no-knock warrant, etc. Okay, except that should be a moot point as there should be no such thing as no-knock warrants. Criminal or not, they are a civilian police force serving warrants on civilian offenders (or, in some cases, the neighbor of a civilian offender when, oops, they kick in the wrong door and shoot/beat down the wrong people or kill seven year old girls who are asleep on the couch.) They are not military anti-insurgent forces going door to door in Afghanistan nor are they carrying off an "0 Dark Thirty" mission.

  And that the victim/defender is the same race as the attackers.

      Hah, spoke too soon.  It came in the mail yesterday.  I have only flipped through it but man, they have a large selection from knives I can only drool over to stuff I can actually afford.  There are 'tactical' knives, traditional knives, some really pretty knives and some 'mall ninja' stuff that just makes me chuckle.

  Very cool.  Sorry you had to retire it due to someone else thinking your property should be theirs.  Things like this is why I disagree when people argue against having the legal right to use force to defend your possessions.  They say, "It's just stuff that can be replaced and isn't worth someone's life," and so on.  Well, a knife that was hand made by your grandfather for your grandmother and that has been passed down to you isn't just 'stuff'.  It is part of your personal history, part of you and part of your family and absolutely cannot be replaced.  Stealing a knife that I had bought and that didn't have such meaning would be one thing as something like that might be 'just stuff' and replaceable (which still doesn't give Mr. Scumbag any right to take it) but, to me, some lowlife attempting to steal something like your knife is not worth nearly as much as those special heirlooms. 

  Thanks!  No, I don't think I have gotten the Boker catalog, yet.  Unfortunately, our current mail person isn't always the most reliable so someone else might be enjoying that catalog for all I know.

  Thanks for the reply and the advice.  Vegetable oils can get rancid, I know, but olive oil lasts longer than most.  My ex-wife's (sadly, late) grandfather made treenware.  At one time, some examples of his work were used in dioramas at the Smithsonian (might still be for all I know.)  Some of his work was sold in the gift shop at Colonial Williamsburg (until their demand exceeded the amount he could turn out as a part time hobbyist) and he taught classes at Arrowmont several years ago.  He intended his wooden spoons, bowls, platters and so on - most of which were based on historical research he had done - to be used.  He always used olive oil on his treenware because it was food safe and wouldn't quickly go rancid like other vegetable oils.  Apparently some of his research indicated that olive oil was often used on treenware in the old days for those reasons.  Now, he didn't use 'Extra Virgin' or anything.  The solids in Virgin or Extra Virgin probably would go rancid pretty quickly.  Instead, he used cheap olive oil that was very light - which in this case probably works best.  I have also been told that walnut oil is good to use as it is food safe and will not go rancid.

When my maternal grandfather passed, I got many of the old kitchen knives he and my step-grandmother had. I am pretty sure that at least some of the ones I got previously belonged to his mother, my great-grandmother. Now, these were folks who lived on and around the Lookout Mountain area of Northern Georgia. We aren't talking about the increasingly 'gentrified' areas of Lookout Mountain, either. We are talking the old, country type folks who live at or near the top of the mountain. Especially back in my great-grandmother's day, these were the kind of folks who went fishing and ate what they caught. They were the kind of folks who usually heated with an old, cast-iron wood heater and who cut their own wood. Heck, my step great-grandfather was a woodcutter who used mules to snake the felled trees out of the woods to his sawmill. These were the kind of folks who raised, killed and butchered their own hogs and cured the meat, themselves. I remember that my great-grandmother's house (which my grandfather and step-grandmother lived in for a few years after she died) had a salt box/table on what was basically a closed-in back porch. The salt box was, basically, a low table with built-up sides that was pretty well full of salt (I was just a little kid at the time so I don't know if there were other things in there for curing, etc.) The fresh meat would be placed on the table and covered in salt as part of the curing process. The point in mentioning this is that it is quite likely that some or all of these knives were used in dressing, butchering, preparing and possibly even killing hogs, chickens and possibly other livestock (as well as likely having been used to dress and butcher wild game such as white-tailed deer, rabbits and so on.) Those folks, previous generations of my own family and honest-to-goodness mountain people, weren't playing around. Aside from the knife which inspired this post, there are a couple of these knives of which I eventually plan to post pics, possibly later in this thread. Some of them are production knives, a couple are obviously home made and in the case of one or two I am not completely sure which they are. The knife I want to discuss first is one of the latter category. I am pretty sure it is either home-made or at least a blacksmith made knife, not a production knife, but I am not certain. Whatever the case, there is just something about this knife that 'speaks' to me. I don't mean in a psychotic break, voices in my head way but just that something about it really resonates with me to the point that I don't really want to use it as a kitchen knife but, instead, want to make a sheath for it and get it out of the house every once in a while. The funny thing is that I can't explain why or what it is about the knife that is so striking, to me. I imagine it has something to do with the connection with my forebears and their way of life of which this knife was a small part but that isn't the entire reason. There is just a certain something about the knife, itself. I can say that it has some really good steel that, while not extremely thick, has a nice stiffness to it as well as a very good edge. In fact, it probably wouldn't take much to make it scary sharp or even "ridiculously" sharp. Anyhow, here it is. This knife is almost definitely older than me and, for all I know, could be 80 to 100 years old. There is no brand name stamped anywhere I can see but that wasn't (and still isn't) necessarily all that uncommon even with production knives. That said, the way the pins look and the fact that they aren't perfectly aligned along with a few, other details cause me to believe this is not a production knife but is, instead, a handmade knife, whether home-made or made by a blacksmith or individual knife maker. It is a 'half-tang' knife - the tang ends just behind the rearmost handle pin - and you can see that the wooden handle looked a bit worse for wear with some roughness near the end of the handle as well as general, overall appearance (which still wasn't bad all things considered.) Last night I took some 120 grit sandpaper to the handle and then rubbed it with a little olive oil. The purpose wasn't to make the handle look like a new knife - I like the aged and rustic look it has. Instead, I wanted to just smooth and clean the wood up a little and keep it from being so dried out. Here it is after I did those things. As I am thinking of outside-the-kitchen use, I might use some needle files to put a little, shallow jimping on the blade spine just forward of the handle. Other than that, I really don't plan to do anything else to the knife, itself, other than keep it sharp and oil the handle when needed. So, any of you guys seeing what I see in this knife? If so, maybe you can explain it to me.

Very nice.  The first one (furthest to the left in the first pic) and the last one (furthest to the right in the first pic) are the two that stand out to me the most.

Very nice.

  Things mean what they mean and 'assault rifle' means (for one thing) a rifle with select fire.  A skilled driver in a Ford Pinto might outrun an unskilled driver in a Ferrari but that doesn't make the Pinto a supercar.

  You are right, of course.  I should have said that Sturmgewehr literally translates as 'storm rifle' which functionally means 'assault rifle'.

  Maybe just explain to her that the knife is special in its own right, not because of the connection to the old flame.  Explain that you can't remove the sticker without decreasing the value of the whole package.  Then go into some cheesy - er, I mean - romantic explanation about how it doesn't matter where the knife came from because she has your love, etc.   Then, again, I am divorced so what do I know? 

  I still maintain that the term 'assault rifle' is a legitimate term with a legitimate meaning.  The term 'assault weapon' is the anti-coined term that really means nothing.  Antis did not coin the term 'assault rifle'.  The Germans/Nazi military did way back during WWII (Sturmgewehr translates as 'assault rifle.')

  I have been watching it and think it is a pretty good show.  Not high drama or anything but still fun to watch.   Oh, and I loved that song and the Cranberries back in the day.  Still like to hear them, sometimes.

  Of course! :pleased:

  Yep, it's a big 'un.  The blade is not only long but also fairly thick and wide (which is exactly what I was looking for.)  It isn't unwieldy or heavy, though.  In fact, it is in my pocket right now and I don't even notice it being there.

  When I moved after my divorce I couldn't find a knife that had a lot of sentimental value to me.  It wasn't anything super special, just an Edge Mark hunting knife that I had put a really good edge on (with help from one of my uncles.)  Thing is, it was my first 'big' knife as well as having been a Christmas present from my dad when I was in my very early teens.  Along with my .410 single shot it went on a lot of woods walks with me back when I was a teen and the area around where we lived was still wooded and had no other houses on it, leaving it wide open for my walks (with permission from the guy who owned the land around ours back then.)  I looked through all the boxes of stuff from my move, looked in places where I had put other knives and so on and just could not find it.  Finally, one day when looking in a box for something else there was my old hunting knife, just laying there almost on top of everything else.  Now, this was the box I thought I had put it in so I had been completely through it at least ten times to no avail yet there it lay in plain view.  Weird but I'm glad to have it back.

  Sorry to hear that your LG101 is still MIA.  I certainly get what you mean about quality, refinement, affordability and perceived value.  To use a completely non-knife related referenceI, I will pay more for Boar's Head brand lunch meat because it is simply so much better, to me, than any of the other brands I have tried.  I will also pay more for good provolone, havarti, asiago, etc. to put on sandwiches with the Boar's Head meat over cheaper American slices.  Finally, I will pay more for some kind of good sandwich roll over regular white bread because I simply like them a lot better.   I often say that something isn't a bargain - no matter how low the price - if it doesn't taste/work/hold up as well as a slightly more expensive item.  That said, the knives I have ordered have decent blades that either have or could likely be sharpened to a razor edge, seem to have solid lock up and ride well in my pocket.  No doubt I would like the Protechs knives even better and no doubt that they are likely more refined and a pleasure to use.  That said, I must confess that while I want a good, capable blade in case I find myself in an unusual or possibly even survival situation, most of the duties my edc blade sees include things like peeling/slicing an apple or other fruit, slicing cheese or something like a whole salami, summer sausage, etc. for lunch, opening the occasional bubble pack and things like that.  To be honest, it would seem almost a waste to use something like a Protech for such things.  I certainly don't fault others for carrying them, however.  As you said, a lot of it comes down to, "Do I really want it?"  or "Do I really need it?" and "Does it fit my budget or can I/do I want to budget for it?"

The two knives i ordered most recently - The Ontario Rat and Spyderco Resilience - arrived yesterday, as expected. Some pics and comments: The little piece of foam in the bottom of the Spyderco box to really help protect the knife was a nice touch, I thought: A group pic with the Kershaws from last week: I really expected to like the RAT a lot more than the Spyderco but once I had them in hand I was surprised at how much I gravitated toward the Resilience. I said, before, that I wanted a fairly large blade while staying within the realm of something that is practical to pocket carry and use for every day duties. I know Cold Steel makes some really big folders but, to me, they are too big to carry and use practically not to mention that they seem to be designed as folding fighters, not edc use knives. The Resilience blade size, IMO, strikes an almost perfect balance between "large blade' and 'practical edc'. Both the Resilience and the RAT have fairly thick blades (for a folder) with the Resilience being maybe a little thicker at the spine. Both have ergonomic grips with a finger choil and jimping at the top rear of the blade. I find that, for me and my hand size, the Resilience fits and fills my hand better and more comfortably than the RAT or most other folders. For that matter, despite the flat nature of the scales, the Resilience fits my hand better than some fixed blade knives. I still like the blade shape of the RAT a little better but the Spyderco blade shape is plenty good enough, for me, to be worth the trade off in other features. Neither have an overly tactical/tacticool blade shape which is something else Iike about both of them. I think a RAT the size of the Resilience (and maybe with assisted opening) would be just about the perfect edc pocket knife, for me. As it is, the Resilience is pretty close. Speaking of assisted opening, I can open the RAT using nothing but my thumb on the thumbstud. No wrist movement required. In fact, the RAT opens so quickly using just the stud that a casual observer would probably think that it is an assisted opening knife. I am more used to a thumb stud or flipper on the top rear portion of a blade than I am to the thumb hole type setup the Spyderco has. Because of that, I can't reliably open the Spyderco blade quite so quickly every time. I worked with it some yesterday evening and have already seen a lot of improvement in my ability so I think I will eventually 'get there'. As it is, I can open it plenty quickly and easily enough one-handed for most needs. Both came sharp but neither seemed truly 'razor sharp' out of the box. Since I planned on carrying the Spyderco for a while to see if I liked it, I decided to hone the edge to razor sharpness. Well, being me I got a little carried away and ended up reprofiling the blade. It came with pretty much a continuous flat grind with a small, secondary flat grind (bevel?) right at the edge. My favored edge is a convex grind as that seems the best and easiest grind to maintain a good edge for me so the secondary bevel line ended up pretty much going away to be replaced by a convex grind. Unfortunately, I did scratch the blade up a bit doing this but I figure it is a carry knife, not a show piece plus I can probably polish the worst of the scratches out at some point if I decide to do so. Anyhow, by the time I finished the Resilience had a shaving edge that easily passed the 'paper test'. Works for me. Just for the heck of it and to give an idea of the real size/sturdiness of this blade, here is the Resilience with the Boker Magnum Survival knife I ordered a few weeks ago (after seeing peejman's post about it) : Here is the Resilience between the Boker Magnum Survival and my SOG Aura Camp fixed blade knife: Here is the Resilience with my four inch Ruger GP100. Yep, that is one hefty pocket knife: I will probably order a few more pocket knives as time goes on, especially some of those that have been suggested by others in this thread. That said, between the four I have just ordered I think I will probably find my 'as close to perfect as possible" edc. I think that the Spyderco is currently the front runner for that position and may well order one or two more of them before all is said and done, just in case.

  The Protechs are definitely nice but way, way, waaaaaaay (did I mention way?) out of my price range.  I know they say, "You get what you pay for," but for my needs the knives in the $50 and under price range fit the bill just fine.  In fact, in my case, I think I would pretty quickly start seeing diminishing returns when paying much more than that for a pocket knife - especially if I were too nervous to carry it out of fear of losing it because of the price tag.  I just can't see me carrying a knife that costs as much (or more) than I paid for my pocket pistol.  That is just me, of course.

Put simply, at least to my understanding, a true assault rifle is fully automatic or at least has the option to go fully automatic (select fire.)  Further, to my understanding, that is a real term that has been used by various military groups for decades.  My understanding is that the term pretty much started with the German Sturmgewehr.   Not that Wikipedia is the ultimate source or anything but this might help:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44   "Assault weapon" on the other hand, is a term that was made up by liberal antis so that they could use it as an umbrella term to classify (and attempt to ban) a whole lot of guns that aren't really assault rifles but that have some feature or another that makes them have to change their Depends more regularly than they would like whether that feature is an adjustable shoulder stock, a muzzle break, a magazine that holds more than ten rounds, semi-automatic action or just the fact that the rifle happens to be all black..  In other words, the term 'assault weapon' doesn't really mean anything in any, real sense.

Back when Kel Tec still offered them, folks would order the ivory grip frame for the P3AT and then use RIT dye to make it pretty much whatever color they wanted.  Being that the LCP is a copy of the P3AT, if the color in the OP really were 'correct' (maybe the price is low because the FDE color didn't come out right on this batch) then the RIT dye method would probably work and that color should be light enough that it would be pretty easy to get RIT of it (sorry, couldn't resist) in favor of something darker if one wanted to disassemble the gun and do so.  Just a thought.

  My mom, who was around 58 or 59 when she qualified, used a Hi Point 9mm and shot the best in her class.  Of course, the previous weekend I had taken her to the range where she would be qualifying (the same one where I had already qualified) and walked her through what to expect.  I don't know what her target looked like but it was apparently good enough that the rest of the people qualifying with her were asking the instructor what kind of gun she had.  I was pretty proud of her when she told me that.   Being the first person I knew who took the class (I have friends who carried, before, but they were LEO of one type or another) I erred on the side of caution and used my S&W 22A .22LR pistol with a 5.5 inch barrel.  When the instructor told us to pull our targets in and count the holes in the 'it counts' zone while he witnessed, he said to me, "Don't bother counting.  You passed."

  I have shot a little of it, before.  I stay away from the hyper-velocity Aguila (I heard a rumor they were going to stop making that, anyhow, to focus on their other products.)  The first time I shot any of it in my S&W 22A I didn't even get through a complete mag before a case ruptured and blew the extractor out of the slide, to hell and gone.  I have heard that much of the hyper-velocity .22 ammo from all manufacturers can be a little 'iffy' in some guns, though.  I haven't had any problems with the standard or high velocity stuff, though, and the Sniper Sub-Sonics are interesting to shoot from my old H&R revolver.     That was kind of what I was thinking as I was creating the post - that I couldn't believe I was excited enough about finding three danged 50 round boxes (and at over $4 a box, at that) actually on a shelf to post about it.  Such are current conditions, though.   I kind of predicted that .22 ammo would be involved in the (now current) craziness back before the craziness actually hit.  For that reason, I picked up as much extra .22 ammo as I could in the short time (maybe a month or two) between getting that 'feeling' and the actual 'shortage' hitting.  It was enough that I have a cushion but not a whole lot so I get excited when I find enough .22LR somewhere to feel comfortable digging into my stash and shooting some of my .22 handguns and rifles (basically being able to maintain a small stash by replacing what I shoot.)

My old HP 9mm carbine (was the old style stock design - I traded it for one with the TS stock) tore right through a couple of boxes of 9mm ammo that even my Ruger P95 wouldn't reliably fire.  It came in a white box marked 9mm Luger and had red around the primers so I think it might have originally been intended as sub-machine gun ammo and so had harder than normal primers.  The HP carbine tore through it as fast as I could get on target and pull the trigger without a single hiccup.