Category Archives: Davin

This blog is 10 years old

Posted on by
Reply

Hey, I just realized that I’ve been blogging for ten years now. That’s some kind of milestone.

From hand-crafted to Blogger to MovableType to WordPress

Back when I started in 2003, it was really a learning experiment on my part. I was a consultant at the time, and felt that I needed to get first hand experience with blogging as a medium in order to really advise my clients when they would bring it up.

So, the options in 2003 were fewer. I started with just writing raw web code. Then I went with Blogger. After a couple of months, I switched over to MovableType and stayed on that platform until the very end of 2008. Really, MovableType was great, and I only reluctantly left it for WordPress, which I’m still on.

Why did I leave MT? Because the upgrade process was a pain. I often had to allocate an entire morning to upgrading the core MT software on my web server, and WordPress allowed me to upgrade in under 1 hour.

Today upgrading WordPress is even faster, typically taking only the click of a button. (I have automated daily database backups, so my content is safe if the install should fail.)

Now, on each platform migration, my blog posts suffered. I have yet to see a clean content export and import, and if you were to look at some of my really old blog posts, you may wonder if you’re not seeing the whole post. You’re not.

So, what are the most viewed posts?

At this time, here are the top 5 blog posts on my site, by views over the past 30 days.

  1. How to Write Release Notes (1577 views, published in March of 2010)
  2. How to Aim with Iron Sights (1379 views, published in October of 2009)
  3. How I use utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign from Google Analytics (812 views, published in November of 2011)
  4. Signing and Encrypting E-mail on Mac OS X 10.6 Using Self-Signed Certificates (310 views, published in December of 2010)
  5. Small-caps, web text, and CSS (175 views, published in April of 2011)

One observation: “how to” articles get read more than personal anecdotes. Not surprising, right?

Will there be a 20-year anniversary for this blog?

Presuming I’m still alive and that blogs are still a real medium, probably. Now I probably won’t be posting with any more regularity than I have been for years, and the quality of the posts will continue to be hit-and-miss. And a theme for the blog? Not likely. This is just a personal blog, and remains a bit of an experimental place for me.

What has been my biggest challenge? Not being able to write about what I do at work as openly as I would like. I would have some great material, but the risks of disclosing proprietary information and upsetting my colleagues have stopped me, and will probably continue to do so. Oh well.

My new .22 target pistol, Marvel and Springfield Range Officer

Posted on by
Reply

Over the past couple months I’ve worked out the kinks on a new .22 target pistol, and I figured I’d share the details.

The new gun: Marvel Unit 1 conversion on a Springfield Armory Range Officer frame

.22 target pistol: Marvel Precision Unit 1, Springfield Armory Range Officer 1911 frame, and an UltraDot red dot scope.

My new .22 target pistol: Marvel Precision Unit 1, Springfield Armory Range Officer 1911 frame, and an UltraDot red dot scope.

After much consideration, I decided to go with a Marvel Precision Unit 1. That is a conversion unit that you use to turn a 1911 into a .22 pistol by replacing the slide and using different magazines.

The Marvel has a good reputation, it is known to function reliably, and is getting to be famous for its accuracy. Mine came with a 5-shot test target fired at 50 yards. The test group measured 0.81 inches. That really is excellent, considering that to my eye the X-ring on the 50 yard slow fire target looks to be 1 & 11/16 inches. Bottom line: it’ll hold a group tighter than I need it to hold.

I ordered the Marvel unit with an extra magazine, the iron sights, and a scope mount rib. Altogether, including shipping, I paid about $600.

Speaking of shipping, it took a long time for them to get me the unit. I placed the order online on April 5, 2012 and it shipped to me on June 12, 2012. I was definitely not thrilled with waiting that long, but I understand they’re busy.

So, between then and now, here is what I ended up doing.

I shot the gun first with the iron sights. They are good target sights, and I shot fine. However, I’ve been curious about shooting a red dot, so I picked up an UltraDot and put that on top. My 25 yard Timed and Rapid Fire scores didn’t change, but my 50 yard Slow Fire scores seem to have improved. I’ll stick with the dot a little longer and see how it goes (although I’ll continue to shoot iron sights on my .45).

For the lower I’m using a Springfield Armory Range Officer 1911 .45 ACP that I purchased very late in June. Since then I’ve put in a short match trigger from Cylinder and Slide (required some hand-fitting), a reduced-power hammer spring (24 pound ILS spring from Wolff), and tuned the sear spring. The hammer and sear already looked really good.

The stock trigger on the Range Officer was not great. It started at around 5.5 lbs, and had a little bit of creep in it. The break was crisp, which I like. After fitting a new trigger that has a better length for my hand and carefully filing the trigger and a little bit of the trigger channel, the trigger movement is now quite smooth, and down to a nice 2 lbs. I also set the over-travel stop so the trigger won’t move any more than it must.

At Camp Perry during the second week of July I asked at the Marvel table for any tips on reliability and the response was that it should all work fine, but a lighter hammer spring may help if there are issues with loading new cartridges. I did in fact have a few of those issues, and so I put in a lower-powered ILS hammer spring. I fired 80 rounds this afternoon after replacing the spring, and had not a single problem.

So, what’s left? Well, I have a pair of Nill grips on my Clark Heavy Slide 1911, and I like the feel. I may get a pair for this gun too.

Also, I need to pick up another 1911 sear spring so I can tune it to 3.5 lbs for when I put the Range Officer slide back on the gun for shooting .45 ACP. Two pounds is too light for a gun with that kind of recoil, in my opinion.

All-in-all, I’m quite pleased with this set up, and I’m looking forward to competing with it.

Props to my old gun, a Ruger Mk II .22 pistol

I’ve been competing in Bullseye Pistol matches since 1990, and have used the same Ruger Mk II pistol for that entire time. Over half a dozen national pistol matches and many local, state, and regional competitions, not to mention countless hours of practice, I estimate that I’ve put a quarter of a million rounds through the gun.

The Ruger still functions, but after 22 years of heavy use, it’s pretty worn out. I’ve had to replace numerous parts over the years, including two firing pins, a firing pin stop pin, and the recoil spring. The gun is loose, and it feels loose. Could it be tightened? Maybe. Regardless, it’s time for a new gun, and I’ll keep this Ruger as a back up.

The gun has been re-blued, and it is high time for another re-blueing. It is down to bare metal where my fingers and the heel of my hand grip the gun.

Props to the old Ruger though, it will still shoot clean targets (clean means 100 out of 100 points). I’m impressed that it still maintains that precision.