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- My Favorite .50 Beowulf Muzzle Brake February 11, 2020I now have built my second Beowulf and guys ask me about the recoil all the time – the short answer is that it’s very manageable. With just a bit of tuning, I’d put it somewhere between a 20 and a 12 gauge shotgun shooting 2-3/4″ magnum loads. Now that there are a ...
- Video: Crazy Training of Russian Special Forces With PKM and PKP Machine Guns February 11, 2020This is a military motivational video set to music. In it we get a chance to see a variety of PKM ((ПК Модернизированный: “Kalashnikov’s Machine-gun Modernized”) and
- Video: The Alien Tiger – The Mi-35/24V of The Czech Air Force February 10, 2020I’m a huge fan of the Hind family of attack helicopters. This video is of the Czech Air Force’s Mi-35/24V that they painted special for the NATO Tiger Meet exercise. This is one of the most badass paint jobs seen on a Hind. It’s got the H.R. Giger Alien feel for it ...
- Why Does the Color of Grips and Handguards From Ronin’s Grips Fade And What To Do About It? February 10, 2020I’ve had guys ask why the color of my grips or handguards seem to fade with time. The short answer is that it has to do with the liquid wax finish oxidizing and not the plastic – the color is actually in the plastic. You see, we sand every grip and handguard ...
- How To Wash Your Baseball Caps Easily Without Hurting Them February 9, 2020Folks, as my wife will tell you, I like my baseball-style caps and seem to have accumulated a ton of them over the years. With that said, there seem to be just a handful of them that I wear all the time. The problem was that they got pretty dirty with use ...
- Photos of Rick’s Polish AKM-Beryl Transitional Rifle February 8, 2020Rick sent me these cool photos of his new build and I had to share them. He also gave me some details as well. The rifle has a “Polish FB Radom barrel, trunion, and optic rail. Childers polish cg1 receiver. To stay with the polish theme, I found an unissued polish soviet era laminate stock. ...
- How To Run Oil-Lubricated Air Compressors in Cold Weather & Not Trip Breakers February 8, 2020Folks, my shop is unheated and the space where my 60 gallon oil lubricated Ingersoll Rand (IR) 2340L5-V sits can get well below freezing – sometimes even well under 20F. That presents a challenge because the lubricating oil gets thicker as it gets colder and this puts more and more of a load on ...
- Replacing the Pressure Switch on an Ingersoll Rand 2340L5-V Air Compressor February 8, 2020I live in a rural area and wind up doing a lot of my own repairs. About 2-3 years ago I invested in a 60 gallon Ingersoll Rand (IR) 2340L5-V air compressor which is their entry-level “Value Line” of industrial compressors. In hindsight, had I known more about “value” meaning “we made it cheaper”, I ...
- The Absolute Best Shoe and Boot Glue That I have Found! February 7, 2020Folks, I’ve found what I think is the best glue for shoe and boot repair. Yeah, I really mean it. It’s called “Shoe-Fix Glue” and is marketed by a small firm called NJoy Distributors and only sold direct or via Amazon. Let me give you a bit of background first. I’ve ...
- Video: Manufacturing an Eight Inch High Explosive Howitzer Shell Circa 1917 – Shows a Ton of Machining Operations January 13, 2020If you like to watch old school machining, this video from the Library and Archives Canada is pretty amazing. It’s a silent black and white video that is just shy of 54 minutes long. The title of the video is “Manufacturing an Eight Inch High Explosive Howitzer Shell At The Works Of The ...
- Video: How to Make a Japanese Katana Sword: Exquisite Detail Of the Hamon and Engraving December 27, 2019I thoroughly enjoyed this Japanese video that covers the forging, engraving and heat treat of a Japanese Katana by a Master – Sadatosh Gassan. The video provides a great overview and while it is in Japanese, there are subtitles in English. What I found most fascinating was the detail of the creation and application of ...
- Video: Forgotten Weapons Reviews Soviet AK Magazines December 26, 2019In this short video, Ian gives a brief overview of Soviet magazines – notably the slab side, ribbed, waffle and bakelite. As always, Ian does a great job and this is worth a watch! The first generation was a heavily built (over-built) magazine known as the “slab side”. After the slab side, they developed the ribbed ...
- Video: Apex Gun Parts’ Croatian AK-47 Magazines Being Manufactured December 25, 2019While digging for videos on AK magazines, I found this one posted by Apex Gun Parts in 2016. It shows their Croatian AK-47 magazines being manufactured. While they don’t come right out and say they are being made by Zastava, I have a hunch that they are. I would like you to compare this video ...
- Video: Matra Group Manufacturing AK-47 and AK-74 Steel Magazines: From Sheet Metal To The Finished Products December 25, 2019The AK-47 rifle and it’s “banana” 30 round magazine are classics of rugged functional design. While I’ve posted many videos and how-to articles relating to various rifle and pistol variants, I’ve not really covered the steel magazines at all. I was surfing around and found Matra Group located in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In 2015 this small manufacturer ...
- Motivational Video: US Navy Seals and SWCC – “Never Quit” December 24, 2019Many folks have heard of the US Navy’s Sea Air and Land (SEAL) teams. The SEALs have been in a ton of movies and books but they are supported by another critical special warfare group – the Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewman (SWCC). These are the teams that man the small boats that deliver and ...
- Motivational Video: Wolves || UkraInian SOF – Shots of the Malyuk Bullpup and UR-10 Sniper Rifle December 17, 2019Military Division makes some kick ass motivational videos of different special forces groups. They released this video entitled “Wolves || Ukrainian SOF” on December 6, 2019. It has some great videos and a wicked track. What caught my eye is a number of shots of the Ukrainian Malyuk Bullpup Assault Rifle. I’m not ...
- Preparing a Pressure Washer For The Winter December 4, 2019Whether you call it them pressure washers or power washers, these are darned handy machines to have around. For portability, we use models with a gasoline engine and are on our second one. The first lasted for a few years until one wither the water in the pump turned to ice and finally cracked ...
- Replacing the Drive Belt On A 1998 Simplicity Broadmor 16HP Tractor December 3, 2019This fall we had a ton of leaves to mulch as usual. This means every week I mow our acre and a half for about two hours at a time. Long ago, I replaced the OEM Simplicity blades with Oregon Gator blades in the tractor’s 44″ mowing deck to help with this. At ...
- I thought My 1998 Simplicity 16HP Broadmor Tractor Had Bent A Crank – The Real Problem Was A Surprise!! December 3, 2019We bought our Simplicty 16HP Broadmor tractor back in 1998 mainly because my dad had a Simplicity that he kept running for almost 30 years. So here are in on 2019 and the tractor is starting to show its age plus the dealership is long gone so a lot of self-service and tinkering happens ...
- How To Find Out Torque Specifications for Screws and Bolts: An Outstanding NASA Reference Guide December 2, 2019We’ve all been there – you’re working on a project and wondering how much to torque something so either we don’t bother or just take a guess. What I only found out recently was that in 2017, NASA published a really cool guide called “Installation Torque Tables for Noncritical Applications” – ...