How was your day?

How was your day you ask?  Well let me tell you.

Woke thinking it was going to be a good day.  Planning on going for some group therapy.  For those not in the know that means I was going shooting.  Loaded up my pistol and some targets and headed up to the American Shooting Range in Peoria.  40 miles later there I was.  I walked in, did the usual dance and jumping through hoops and found myself on the firing line.  Mount the target.  Load the magazines.  Insert a magazine into the pistol.  Rack the slide, set the safety and put the pistol on the table.  I picked up the pistol and swept off the safety as I aligned the sights on the target.

Boom, boom, boom…….. Shit!

The slide locked back and I had a failure to feed.  So I went through the drill.  Slap the magazine on the bottom making sure it was seated.  Pull back the slide and release.  Only the slide would not pull back.  Would not go forward.  Ok repeat the drill.  Still nothing.  Thinking a round was jammed I dropped the magazine and tried racking the slide.  Nothing.  Ok I depressed the slide lock lever and the slide slid forward into battery.  Ok thinking the round in the magazine might be the problem I striped it out and reset the mag.  Racking the slide it worked fine slapping forward as it stripe the next round out of the mag.

Boom……… Shit!

The slide locked back again.  Thinking the magazine was the problem I removed it and inserted another.  I depressed the slid lock lever and the slide snapped forward chambering the round.

Boom…….. Shit!

Ok, emergency repair procedure number 2: I tried harsh language.  Didn’t work.  Ok bullets not jamming, check.  Both magazines having the same problems, check.  Must be the pistol.  I contacted the range officer and asked for his help.  He loaded one of the magazines and shot the pistol.  

Boom…… Shit!  

After several tries he determined there was a problem with the spring on the slide lock lever.  My group therapy was over.  Loading everything up I drove home.  Did I mention it was 40 miles?  I am now in a sour mood.  Ok, I was pissed!  It didn’t help my mood by bumping along on Illinois roads thinking there were too many assholes on the road.  Then I thought there were the right amount of assholes on the road.  One for each driver.

Getting home I call Ruger and am put on hold.  Finely after 16 months (really only 5 minutes) I get a nice lady who helps me prepare to return my pistol to Ruger to be fixed.  So I go to my email to print out the shipping label and …… Shit!  Window’s 8.1 wants me to watch some video before I can print out the email and label.  I watch the stupid video then go to print….. Arrh!  The printer is out of black ink.  Replacing the cartridge I try again.  Success!  Shit!  The shipping label comes out the size of a stamp!  Reformatting the email creates a life size shipping label.  I start to fill out the form in the email.  Serial number, check.  RMA#?  What the hell is an RMA#?  So I poor over the email and shipping label looking for the elusive RMA#?  There is no such number to be found so I call Ruger again.  On hold again for 16 month!  Really only 10 minutes this time.  Nice lady says that’s the reference number.  Why the BLEEP didn’t they call it the reference number on the form?  Ok, I finish filling out the form then clean my pistol.  Getting in the car I head up the Manito Blacktop to drive back to Peoria to the FedEx place.  Only 35 miles this time.  I’m in a hurry because I have to be back by five o’clock to go pick up something from Sue’s.  Halfway to Pekin there is a police car in the road forcing traffic to detour.  I know not why but I now have to drive almost to Manito (where I live) to pick up another road to cross the Mackinaw River.  Well I made it to the FedEx ok after that and tried the Manito Blacktop coming home thinking it might be open now but no.  So I had to detour once again.  But I made it.  So, how was your day?

Camping Cook Pots

OK! Something different for a change.  I'm going to try to incorporate pictures into a story.  This story will not be about politics or religion.  It's about cook pots for camping, so here goes.

When I was in Boy Scouts I used the boy scout mess kit.  What a bad piece of cook kit it was too.  It had a plate, fry pan, small kettle and a plastic cup marked off in quarter cup, half cup, three-quarter cup and one cup measurements.  The frying pan was too thin to cook with and I lost the wing nut for the folding handle right away.  The plate was alright I guess but I ended up using the small pot and the plastic cup the most.  We used the group cook set for the whole patrol but when I cooked for myself all I did was boil water to make instant coco and instant oatmeal.  The only other cooking I did was soup.  Here's a picture of the small pot.

It would hold about two cups of water and did all I needed at the time.

Later someone gave my Scout Troop a bunch of Army surplus cook gear and I was able to snag onto a canteen and canteen cup as well as an Army mess kit.  Again not much cooking in the mess kit but the canteen cup became my new cook pot. 

Here you see canteen cup next to the Boy Scout cooking pot.  This is not the canteen cup I used in Scouts.  This has the better butter fly type handle and a home made lid for it.  The old type handle folded under the cup and when unfolded and hooked had the worst timing for coming undone.  Usually when it was full of boiling water and lifted off the fire.  After our Canada canoe trip I ditched the Army mess kit and just carried a Tupperware cereal bowl to eat out of keeping the canteen cup as my main cooking pot.

Later I wanted a collecting hobby and since I didn't have much money I decided to collect mess kits.  So here are a few I have...

First up is an East German mess kit patterned after the German WWII mess kit.

This kit is aluminium and light weight but I am not a fan of the inner cup and would replace it with something plastic like a Tupperware bowl or a Swedish Kaska cup.  You will see one of the Swedish cups in that mess kit.  This kit will hold about four to six cups of water for cooking and the lid can be used as a small fry pan or to heat up one quick cup of water for coffee or tea on the march.

The next mess kit is another German mess kit.  It may even be from WWII but I don't know for sure.

This kit is the same dimensions as the East German kit just better made and also aluminium.

Next the Swedish mess kit.  It's a little larger than the German ones but not by much.

Here you see it packed together inside its aluminium pot stand/wind screen.  The pot itself is Stainless Steel.  The newer mess kit were made of aluminium and the newest Swedish mess kit look entirely different.

Now you can see the pot does not have the inner bowl the German mess kits have.  Instead the pot is packed with the Kaska cup, trangia stove and alcohol bottle.

You'll notice too that the Swedish mess kit is oval where the German kits are kidney shape.  The Germans would wear their kits on the bread bag or their Y-straps so the kidney shape allowed the kit to ride closer to the body.  The Trangia stove ran on alcohol.  Not any alcohol will do.  The best is denatured alcohol like you get in the paint aisle of a hardware store.  They say you can use the yellow DEET fuel additive too.  The red DEET contains chemicals that are harmful if breathed in when it burns.  The stove is super simple in that all you do is pour in some alcohol and light.  It's a little finicky in the super cold but works well enough even someone in the Army could use it. 

Here are a series of pictures showing the set up and use of the cook kit.  Notice too the D-rings on the skillet handle that allow a stick to be used extend the reach of the pan.

Notice the pot stand unfolded.

The Trangia stove is in place ready to light.  (If it wasn't in my living room on a card table)

The top picture shows the cooking pot in the stand.  The middle shows how the skillet can be used to cover the pot and speed up boiling time.  The bottom pictures shows the skillet in the stand for frying or boiling a small amount of water for a cup of Joe.  Notice too the stick in the D-rings on the handle allowing for greater reach.  Helpful if cooking over a wood fire.

These are all the military mess kits I have so I think I will wrap it up for now.  I'll show some of my other mess/cook kit later.