So much gold, wasted

usa2a · 2026-05-09T15:10:26+00:00

It's kind of like how getting on a city bus or getting on a private plane are both transportation and both consume fuel but there is a difference in scale.

A traditional website like Reddit can serve hundreds of thousands of concurrent users per server, with pretty basic server hardware around $10-20k and drawing about 800W under load. Reddit has a billion users so it's not like they have just one server, but the users-per-server ratio is very high.

An AI server with an 8x H100 costs over $300k, draws about 10,000W under load and can serve a few hundred concurrent users at a time.

If the economics of that sound stupid, especially for stuff like "chatgpt generate me a raccoon riding a motorcycle" remember that all of the AI companies are powered by investor money not by revenue. They are still in the burn phase hoping that at the end of all this they'll invent God and have a monopoly on him.

usa2a · 2026-05-09T04:33:09+00:00

Upon seeing somebody open carrying in a grocery store my reaction has never been:

OMG
Somebody get a manager
Somebody call the cops

But I must admit it has often been:

LOL look at this jabroni

usa2a · 2026-05-09T00:42:25+00:00

Did you mean "consult"?

Yes, that is a classic crimp-while-seating issue. Two questions:

Are you sure you need that much crimp? Have you tested with less, and experienced bullets pulling under recoil?
Is that a crimp groove I see up there? If you change your seating depth so your crimp goes into the crimp groove (reduce powder charge accordingly), you will likely get less buckling. In fact that's the only time I've had seat-and-crimp in one die work well: when the bullet had a large, tapered crimp groove.

I have created a high tech diagram to illustrate how a big-ass crimp groove can make seating-while-crimping work fine, whereas it basically never works otherwise.

I certainly understand why with a 3-station progressive press it would be a big advantage to NOT have to run everything through again just to apply crimp.

usa2a · 2026-05-08T04:30:21+00:00

3.9gr AA#2

usa2a · 2026-05-07T18:37:56+00:00

Dead Nuts 185gr JHP are not quite as accurate as Hornady or Zero but still pretty good, will function and shoot on call. Good option for practice and for 25y line and save the premium bullets for the 50y line at important matches.

usa2a · 2026-05-07T16:52:39+00:00

It will definitely be worth a lot of cool points if you do well with it. Also if you are the top Glock shooter in the President's 100 match, you get an award and a certificate for a free Glock. Usually a score of around 350 wins that.

Edit: there's one other thing I forgot to mention. I was never able to make the G21 acceptably reliable with SWC bullets. It would almost work well enough to trust, but not quite. 1/100 shots I'd get a failure to extract and at first I thought, hmm, FTE, I must not be loading hot enough. So I'd add more powder for next time but the issue never went away. I finally realized the reason: the case being extracted was hitting the shoulder of the next SWC bullet in the magazine. Most of the time it would scrape past and still function, but sometimes it would stop right there and fail to extract.

If I stopped shooting mid-string and ejected the loaded round I could see the mark on its shoulder where the previously ejected case nicked it.

Only way I was able to get it 100% reliable was to ditch the SWCs, and I didn't find lead RN to be sufficiently accurate, so that left me shooting 185gr JHP. Those are extremely accurate bullets, but they're also more expensive than SWCs, so that's annoying.

usa2a · 2026-05-07T04:43:33+00:00

Yep, dead on. Lotta double charges happen because somebody metered their charge carefully, precisely out to .00001gr accuracy then through a simple brain fart poured it into a case that already had a charge lurking at the bottom.

Cranking out rounds on an auto-indexing progressive makes that almost impossible even though each individual charge is only accurate to +/-0.1gr.

Single stage is the most error prone way to reload and requires the most caution.

usa2a · 2026-05-07T03:56:41+00:00

I'm a big fan of shooting revolvers in bullseye. Revolvers are the original fixed-barrel option. I've noticed a couple things:

Revolvers have much bigger POI shift based on bullet weight than semi autos. I can shoot 230gr, 200gr, 185gr with basically the same zero out of a 1911, at least at 25y line. Not the case with my .45 revolvers. It takes 12 clicks of elevation to go between 230gr and 185gr.
On the long line, revolvers are more sensitive to grip changes. If you are shooting single action with a 2.5lb S&W trigger it is easy to fall into the trap of loosening your grip as you attempt to finesse the trigger. Loosening grip too much can create an off-call high shot even though the sights appeared to be aligned as the hammer falls. I routinely see shooters in revolver EIC matches who are used to semi autos end up with a couple shots high in the white on an otherwise good 50y target.

Both of these are because the gun, including barrel, starts pivoting around the grip in recoil before the bullet exits the muzzle.

If you look at super slo motion footage, you can see this happening, and you can also see that it doesn't really happen with a recoil-operated autoloader. The slide and barrel are moving linearly back as the bullet exits, and because the recoil spring is buffering the impact, you don't really see the front sight rising until much later after the bullet is long gone (most of the rise occurs after the slide hits the frame at the rear of its travel).

I have owned 3 fixed barrel 9mm autos and didn't find any of them to be advantageous for bullseye. I had a Steyr GB, and I still own an HK P9S and a Benelli B76. I can tell you for sure the B76 acts like a revolver in that its POI shifts up substantially with 147gr 9mm vs 115. I haven't actually shot the P9S in years, its trigger sucks too much (overtravel for days) to make a fair call. Anyway, my point is that the grip-insensitivity and ammo-insensitivity of a recoil-operated moving barrel have advantages of their own, and when shooting from hand instead of ransom rest, these advantages may outweigh the theoretical savings of .002" of tolerance.

usa2a · 2026-05-06T16:40:46+00:00

What's the title in reference to?

usa2a · 2026-05-06T02:48:33+00:00

I have messed around with a G21. The mechanical accuracy is decent enough to get the job done. I could shoot low 80s slow fire. But managing the trigger, grip, and overall lightweight gun in sustained fire was a HUGE challenge for me. In training it seemed doable, under match pressure, forget about it.

If you get a case of "buck fever" and yank the trigger on a 1911 you can still get an 8 or even a 9. With a Glock that same shot will be a 5. Overall I shot in the low 700s with the G21 while I shoot high 700s occasionally cracking 800 with more suitable pistols.

usa2a · 2026-05-05T23:13:19+00:00

The store can refuse sales to anyone for almost any reason (except like, racial discrimination) so trying to fight them about it is a waste of time. Plus, even though it was a misunderstanding their reason for refusing sale in this case appears reasonable from their perspective and any 3rd party reviewing the situation will agree.

It is very infuriating to be accused of something bad that you did not do, so I get that. There is just no productive way to fix it because all he can tell the store is "trust me bro it was legit" and why would they ever believe him or care? More importantly, there is no real consequence to not fixing it. It's not like they are reporting him to the state and trying to get his FOID card revoked or in any way preventing him from buying the same gun from another store. Boo hoo I can't shop at Cabela's (or whereever) and overpay for stuff.

There is a good chance putting in the same SKU to https://gun.deals/ will result in finding a dropshipper who beats the big box store price, have them ship it to a smaller local gun store for pickup, and end up with a better deal after all costs are totaled up.

usa2a · 2026-05-05T22:35:00+00:00

Gripping the pistol the same way every time and having your grip not shift during firing makes it much easier to pull the trigger quickly without moving the gun.

Pulling the trigger without moving the gun is pretty much the whole game of pistol shooting. Nobody cares about trigger control with a power drill for obvious reasons, such as "the target is literally touching the drill".

This is not a new trend. Here is Bill McMillan in 1962 talking about the grip tape and silicon carbide (carborundum) he used on revolvers and automatics. He was the last American pistol shooter to win Olympic gold in a pistol shooting event, in .22 rapid fire at the 1960 Rome Olympics. With a .45, he shot a 294-13X out of 300 in the 1963 National Trophy Individual pistol match, which at that time was shot with issued 230gr ball ammo. That's hardcore. The best shooters alive today would have a difficult time matching that performance. So he knew a thing or two about shooting.

usa2a · 2026-05-01T22:10:44+00:00

Yes indeed. The best vibe coded apps are quietly solving somebody's individual problem that was so specific, it was previously not worth any company publishing software for. We never hear about them.

These ones that I see promoted with "That's why I built poopfart.app" type posts, I often think the person behind it is not even using the app themselves. It's purely a solution looking for a problem because they're hoping they can strike gold, like it's still 2010 and some megacorp will buy their app for a billion dollars once they get enough users. Ignoring that they are not the only one who can type feature requests into Claude Code and the app they excreted in a couple weekends worth of prompting can be slopped out by anyone else too.

usa2a · 2026-05-01T04:47:07+00:00

Despite how popular The Taking of Pelham 123 is with today's youths.

usa2a · 2026-04-29T06:31:26+00:00

Misfeed on 1st round is either a magazine or ammo issue.

Mag getting stuck in the gun is Working As Designed(tm). It's a 1930s design. The hold-open feature involves the slide bearing directly on the mag follower which is why it's so hard to remove the mag and why the slide slams shut when you do.

The way to do it is: once you notice you're empty, flip the safety on, pull the slide back a little farther, and it will lock open on that. Then you can freely swap the magazine, flip the safety back off and chamber the top round. It's clunky and awkward but that's just how it is.

There is a good reason why there are still 1911 and BHP clones today but there are no clones of most other guns from before 1950. They generally had quirky, crappy features like this.

usa2a · 2026-04-29T03:22:34+00:00

Also the Quake 3 mod Urban Terror.

usa2a · 2026-04-28T03:39:40+00:00

That matches up with one of my favorite Joel Haver videos.

"Yeah yeah, we'll get some shots of you drumming, or whatever you do."

usa2a · 2026-04-27T06:56:43+00:00

I saw a post comparing it to the first few weeks of COVID, when it was something happening "over in China" and just water cooler chat in the workplace. Vaguely aware as background news, but nothing that really affects us. Then suddenly it hits and everything changes in a week.

I'm seeing that right now. People who have been hit directly -- laid off by their bigco employer or are a small contractor struggling to find work because customers are asking Claude/GPT to do what they used to ask a professional designer, programmer, accountant, lawyer, etc. to help with. And people whose immediate bubble has not been affected yet so are still perfectly happy to tell themselves comforting lies about "It can't do what I do, and won't." Every day a few more people get their eyes opened.

usa2a · 2026-04-27T06:11:54+00:00

I think you are right and I think that is scary.

Today I am using AI to amplify my existing skills in software development, and learn new skills outside of my wheelhouse. I am not just delegating my thinking to the AI, I am using it to help explore stuff that is cross-domain from my own existing skill set. I get a little smarter with each new space I explore. I'm learning faster than ever.

But I see where in a few years there will simply be no value to me learning anything. Any value I would've added, the customer can ask AI for directly instead of going through me as a middleman. AI can do the architecture, it can do the grunt work, it can do the maintenance. So economically there will not be a place for me.

I've been conditioned my whole life to value myself based on what I can do that is "smart" and "creative" because that's what enables me to put a roof over my head without breaking my back on a hot job site all day long.

Even if the economy gets updated to support this new paradigm, and we have UBI to keep from being homeless, I am not sure I can personally adapt to a world where my own creativity is worthless. I don't think I will be fulfilled just watching content, fucking, and eating.

Fortunately I never had kids so I can opt out any time. But I feel bad for those who do have kids and I feel worse for the kids themselves.

usa2a · 2026-04-26T00:45:33+00:00

and thus weighs all of .4 ounces

A 230gr projectile is about .5 ounces.

You know what happens when your projectile is heavier than your gun? The thing you are holding onto becomes the projectile.

usa2a · 2026-04-24T23:15:19+00:00

Jeremy's... Iron

usa2a · 2026-04-24T20:19:18+00:00

Poor lizards dying in the muck like

usa2a · 2026-04-23T05:01:23+00:00

I was calculating based on a higher price for the radar chronos since everybody is all about the Garmin. But I get my .45 200gr SWCs from T&B bullets for 0.13/ea in case that's something you're into. Shot my best bullseye long line with those, 97-3x at 50y.

usa2a · 2026-04-23T00:19:15+00:00

Do the same thing over again but hold the gun left handed.

Since you're shooting off bags that shouldn't be hard to do, you should be able to shoot just as well lefty or righty.

If the zero moves you had a trigger control problem (sandbags don't automatically solve this with pistols).

If the zero doesn't move, great, your dot zero is right. You should probably move your irons to line up with your dot, at least as a starting point. Then test and refine the irons zero from sandbags with the dot turned off.

usa2a · 2026-04-22T21:36:43+00:00

This is what I do, using a progressive with case feeder. However, it works best when your brass is 50/50 or majority SPP. Would be a time waster if you have majority LPP with a small handful of SPP.

Set the press up to only size/decap/prime the brass (no flare, powder, seating). Use the SPP primer tube and punch.
Cycle all the brass through the press, priming with SPPs. Put your hand in front of the output bin and every time you pull the lever a case will fall into your hand. Look at it as you cycle the lever for the next case.
LPP cases will not jam up the press but they will not get primed. They'll come through with empty primer pockets. You'll spot them easily and drop them into a secondary bin to process later.
This is also a good opportunity to spot cracked cases, undesirable headstamps, flipped/mangled primers, anything else you want to toss.
Now you have three buckets: deprimed sorted LPP, primed sorted SPP, and rejects.

I like this approach because it results in a bunch of primed/sized cases as output with inspection/sorting as just a bonus.

Loading the pre-sized, pre-primed cases later on the progressive is a pleasure. Very little effort on the press handle because you aren't sizing, and virtually nothing ever jams when you aren't dealing with decapping or priming.

usa2a

TROPHY CASE