peejman

Yep, been one (ME) for 13 years and counting. Had 3 different jobs in 3 different industries. Happy to talk about it more if you like. http://www.asme.org/kb/news---articles/articles/technology-and-society/mobile-apps-for-engineers--what%E2%80%99s-in-store- http://www.asme.org/kb/news---articles/articles/technology-and-society/10-ipad-apps-for-engineers

Congrats! Coming up on 11 years here. There's definitely been some good times and not so good times. Such is life. How can they value something they don't understand?

Good luck with school. I probably do more real engineering work with stuff like this than at my day job, but such is life. There are several good engineering related web sites and apps, if you have a fancy phone. The online calculators and such are neat, but without understanding the underlying theory it's really easy to make mistakes and not know it.

What they said. Savage or Remington, heavy barrel/varmit. Plan to spend as much or more on optics as the rifle. If it gets squirrely beyond a certain range, it's probably not the rifle, it's probably the optics. If your intent is only target shooting, a small and fast caliber has some advantages (.223, .243, .22-250, etc.). Much beyond 400 yds you'd probably be happier with something bigger, .308 being the most common.

A good belt is pricey but worth it. I've worn the same Beltman belt daily for 5-6 years and it hasn't degraded much at all. http://thebeltman.net/

According to this... http://www.saami.org/specifications_and_information/publications/download/208.pdf the max pressure for a high velocity .22 short is 21,000 psi. That pressure is then used to calculate the stress in the barrel material, which is then used to pick a material that gives adequate properties. My assumption is that the chamber would be modeled as a thick walled pressure vessel to calculate the stress. That's not entirely accurate, but should give a conservative estimate. If you know the dimensions of the chamber (both inside and out) the stress calculation isn't particularly difficult. The link above also gives standard chamber internal dimensions. The outside dimensions can be varied to change the stresses and tailor to a particular material. Here's a calculator for the stress. I have not verified it's accuracy. http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/stress-thick-walled-tube-d_949.html If you don't want to go through all that... just get a .22 LR barrel and cut it to your desired length.

That MTM box looks pretty cool to me, though I can see the rest getting in the way if you don't use it. How about one of the canvas tool box organizer things? $40... http://www.homedepot.com/Tools-Hardware-Tool-Storage-Tool-Storage-Workstations-Bags-Cases-Bucket-Storage/h_d1/N-5yc1vZbtxm/R-202018002/h_d2/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&storeId=10051 $60 and its on wheels... http://www.homedepot.com/Tools-Hardware-Tool-Storage-Tool-Storage-Workstations-Bags-Cases-Bucket-Storage/h_d1/N-5yc1vZbtxm/R-202353445/h_d2/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&storeId=10051

I'm happy with mine. It had the dreaded squeak when I first got it. After some fiddling, gluing some felt to the back of the belt clips finally fixed it. I don't wear it as often as I should, it's too easy to stick the P3AT in my pocket. But it's a well made, comfortable holster. A real gun belt makes a significant difference. As for drawing without the combat cut... there's a technique. When I grip the gun, my thumb goes straight up the back of the slide to the rear sight. As the gun clears the holster the thumb slides down, disengages the safety, and moves to normal "thumbs forward" position.

Welcome!

Welcome!

What he said. I'd remove them and either blue or rattle can them.

I also have little ones. Thoughts and prayers with your family.

I worked away from my wife for 7 months while she was pregnant with our 1st. Not fun. However, working at the same place as your wife can have pro's and con's... Consider that carefully.

A friend sets up web sites for online sales for a living. If you're interested, I'll send you contact info.

Welcome!

You can peen the bottom of the dovetail slot (or the sight) to raise a little metal. Or you can peen the sides down a little to tighten up the fit. If you don't intend to adjust it, you can stake the sides. Or try a different front sight. Not sure what you mean by the hand guard. I don't think any of the metal parts would be painted. Yes, you'd have to strip the paint to re-blue.

Given it a lot of thought. Very little actual effort, but lots of thought. I think endurance training would be much more valuable than strength training. There's lots and lots of big, strong guys who would collapse before the 1 mile mark.

The flyer at work has pictures at a range. Our best guess is it's the police range across from William Blount HS, but we're not sure.

Neat stuff. I've always found typical blacksmithing work interesting. There's something satisfying about heating metal red hot, then pounding it into shape. I think it would be a neat skill to learn.

Crabgrass is really hard to fully get rid of. I've basically given up. I spray my lawn with a broad spectrum weed killer in the spring and that's it. I quit bothering with fertilizer since it just makes the weeds grow faster. If your neighbors have weeds, so will you. If you really want it gone, hire one of the professional lawn chemical services (Trugreen, Scotts, etc.). They've got all the goodies needed to take care of it. They're not cheap, but probably more cost effective than fighting it yourself. My neighbor uses them and his yard looks like a golf course. Mine is green and it grows and that's good enough for me.

Find out what the snakes are after, get rid of that, and the snakes will go away. My in-laws had copperheads in their basement. We quite readily discovered that the snakes were there to eat the mice. The mice were eating the dog food and bird seed. Got rid of the dog food and bird seed, no more snakes.

It may be too late (warm) for lettuce. I planted lettuce seeds about 2 months ago. A couple seedlings came up then quickly died, nothing else. What I've read says they're very early spring or fall plants, they don't like the heat. I planted two types of green bean seeds. One version has lots of sprouts coming up, the other only a few so far.

This. And this... http://www.corneredcat.com/Contents/

Bought my Yugo SKS (in excellent shape) and my Ruger P85 (stainless, well worn, but an excellent shooter) both for $350. Given what the SKS was worth at the time, I figured I paid $100- $150 for the Ruger. Given today's value of the SKS, the Ruger was free.