Orcish Operator targets courtesy orcishoperator.net
The two cofounders of Orcish Operator have created a series of six gaming targets (three above, click to embiggen) for arms and archery with the goal of creating a product that would not only appeal to current gun enthusiasts but attract new people into the world of gun ownership and shooting sports. The targets draw inspiration from fantasy games and movies and are available in two sizes, 24”x36” and 12”x18”. Unfortunately, they do not appear to be “visible shot” targets like Shoot-N-C or Dirty Bird. Images of their other targets are available at their website and they are currently seeking crowdsourced funding through Indiegogo. . .

Shoulda been a Philly DGU. Really thin on information, but police are looking for three men involved in an attack that killed another man on Monday. The deceased was stabbed repeatedly in the face and neck with a machete in broad daylight early Monday afternoon, and the three persons of interest then fled the scene in a gold car. Google StreetView shows it to be not the best neighborhood, so odds are high that it was drug/gang/crime-related, but even criminals have the right to defend their own life from sudden attack. NB: While gun laws may have kept guns out of the hands of the machete-wielding miscreants, forcing them to choose other avenues of attack, those laws didn’t keep the bad guys’ target alive.

The San Francisco Police Officers Association filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging San Francisco’s recently passed confiscatory ban on magazines holding greater than 10 rounds. The lawsuit, which is also being backed by the NRA, argues that magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds are commonly owned and therefore protected under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The ordinance, which was passed unanimously by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on October 29th, will go into effect on December 8th unless the judge approves SFPOA’s request for an injunction.

Last Thursday I advised you to be on the lookout for a rifle that a Wisconsin sheriff’s deputy left on his trunk and drove away. It seems a local good samaritan found it and returned it the next day, so that’s good news for the deputy. Sorry if you were in the area and missed your chance.

Hickok45 performs a little pistol barrel length testing to find out if size really matters. Since his shoot videos and “tests” usually consist of him making improbable distance shots on steel and giving his subjective opinion, it was interesting to see him actually writing down numbers in this one.

 
Let’s Bring ‘Em Home is up to 28 ticket requests and 241 donors have given a bit over $22,000. The domestic ticket requests have only just started to roll in, so please click the banner below to help out.

lbeh.org

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

112 COMMENTS

  1. I already help military members pay for plane tickets – it’s called paying almost 1/3 of my income in taxes.

    • Normally, I’d agree with such statements. However, look at the salary of the average service member. Compare that to congressmen

      • Now look at their cost of living if they choose to live on base – $0 (roughly). My pay isn’t much higher (if at all) than the average meat shield’s, yet I don’t see any fundraiser to give me free stuff.

        • Sir,
          Next time you see a service member, by them a coffee or a beer, strike up a conversation, then ask them what they pay for their uniforms, food, etc…
          I think you will be surprised. Maybe even shocked.
          Proud papa of 3 marines here.

        • First off, don’t call us meat shields. Secondly, we don’t get paid shit. While deployed I worked 13-15 hours a day 7 days a week for approximately $5 an hour.

        • Meat Shield? Says the man who has never been in the military.
          You’re nothin but a boy. You know nothing about honor, courage, or anything else that makes a man.

        • The GS-whatever who fixes the lawn mowers on post makes more than a rifleman in an infantry company,

          The “chick who works at the DMV” makes more than a rifleman in an infantry company,

          The Barney Fife deputy sleeping behind the neighborhood Quicktrip makes more than a rifleman in an infantry company.

          But sure, Tote, break your arm patting your back because you’re a taxpayer.

        • I don’t care if they get paid five times what I get paid, they volunteered to put their lives on the line to protect us and ours. Show some respect!

        • Showing once again that people won’t hesitate to say things on the internet that would get them punched in the face in real life.

        • Meat shield? Wow.
          Donate so soldiers can see their family for the holidays?! WHAT AN AWFUL THING TO DO!!!!
          Youre a stand up guy

        • Cue the stereotypical “Murdering people who don’t look / think like me is (somehow) defending us (even though they posed no threat to us)!” and “Bow before those who live to serve politicians” bullshit. Jesus people, do you not remember how the last country that deified it’s military ended up? I sure as hell do, because my family was there and watched their friends and neighbors be murdered as a result of it.

          This is where gun owners are their own worst enemy – because they worship the very people who oppress them. If it wasn’t for the fact that the military is not only ready, but eager to shoot anyone who disagrees with politicians, those politicians would have no power to take away your rights. I know, you’ll spout some bullshit about “They would never do that!” but US history over the past century shows that to be completely false – and in the worst incident of US soldiers murdering unarmed Americans, they had a hard time getting them to stop…and the unarmed protesters that they were murdering were former soldiers in the US military. So think about that for a second – if they’re willing to kill their fellow soldiers (who were unarmed), why would they give a damn about someone that they view to be below them because they don’t work for the government?

        • I have great respect for our people in the military, but nobody made you join, you knew going in it would be long hours with crappy pay and the chance of death, there is no draft being used. If you joined to get the signing bonus and GI bill then that is your choice, if you dont like what you get then dont join. We need to fix the problems rather than ask for more money all the time, use the money we send the government better and lots of problems will be solved.

        • Your pay’s not much better than the average soldiers? I know you’re about 30yo. If your pay at this point in your life isn’t much better than a privates you must have a job that requires a paper hat. Explains why you’re so angry and bitter. No wife, no kids and a dead end job. 2 days after you’re gone, who will remember you? It’ll be like you never existed. Did you actually plan this pointless existence or have you spent so much time whining on the interwebz that you forgot to build a life?

        • If Tockenglock never served he’s ignorantly misinformed.
          If he did he not only has a short memory but lacks compassion.

        • Awesome Toten!

          This is the best trolling post you have ever written. Meat shields – Jesus, – going to bookmark this.

          It’s funny Toten speaks out against military funding and the “support your troops” squad starts rolling out the insults.

      • The only thing I have against paying for plane tickets specifically is that I think the carriers should donate the seats.

    • Most of the Defense budget goes for weapons, communications, and other supplies. What is left over then goes to pay troops’ salaries. Coming up with the money to buy a round-trip plane ticket from Afghanistan, or hundreds of other international bases, can be very difficult for a married private, airman or seaman.

      • Uncle Sam (tax duckies) pays for them to come from wherever they are deployed to back to the US (closest airport to home station).

        What isn’t paid for is for them to fly somewhere else to be with family. Though there have been times when flying to any international airport in the US was offered (and Europe). What can be a problem is getting a ticket back home if you are stationed to a place like Germany or Korea. Usually you have to afford your own flight.

        The costs of those tickets can easily run in the 1-2 grand range, even more in some places at times.

      • It’s called the military industrial complex. War is a racket. It’s about wealth redistribution. It never was about “protecting the homeland”.

        • Bob – you’re as wrong as the Toten Troll above…it has always bee about “protecting the homeland” just not to the civilian “leaders” running the show. Damn near every troop I served with and later lead for more that the minimum 20, joined out of at least some small sense of patriotism… Yes, many had other reasons- from getting some adventure (HA!) to getting an education to just getting 3-hots-and-a-cot. You ask them and they would tell you all about their grand plans, then add a little trailer along the lines of serving the nation.The military-industry complex we all go on and on about and do nothing to muzzle is echelons above the corps of the corpses they create. Duty. Honor. Contry. Me. I’m a retired AF Veteran & father of a Marine veteran been there done that… oh, no t-shirt, got a couple holes poked in me by guys working for the ohter military-industry complex.

        • Wolf, “patriotism” is just a euphemism for “blind loyalty to corrupt politicians”. Worshiping a flag and a government has nothing to do with giving a rats ass about the people of the country. Outside of the dozen or so men involved in killing Bin Laden, the US military hasn’t done a damn thing to defend this country in SEVENTY YEARS. All of their actions in the past 70 years have been about terrorizing and intimidating foreign nations that pose no threat to us

        • Toten with a left then a right – it’s a knockout! Jesus it’s a knockout!

          On a more serious note. I would tend to agree with Toten on this specific point. We have no business in Afganistan, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Serbia, or any other on this list:

          http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States

          This list above is proof the US has “interests” and wants a piece of all loot obtained in any war.

          If the US gov cared about US lives then we wouldn’t be wasting them like this. After all there are no politicians children on the front lines.

        • Sorry guys no knock out… go on line sometime and research how many times the old Soviets started an invaison of Western Europe from ’45 to ’90. (It’s 4 that I could find – seems a old KGB guy sold a buch online to make ends meet – they’re intersting reading). It was a “Cold War” that often anything but cold, and a helluva lot more imprtant then you seem to realize. On top of that, I cannot remember how many times our mission was to haul food, water, shelter, and emegency equipment into little villages in the middle of nowhere. Do you really think people in the world look to America as the land of milk and honey, a place they still flock to (and want to if the can’t actually make the trip) or get their kids to because they like the polictics of our government? Or maybe because of the images from Hollyweird? And please, if you go ask they often don’t like Americans in general because we act like idiots in other people’s countries (not even counting nvasions) they look to us as a nation because of what we have done FOR the world.

          But then you’re both missing the fundamental. A INDIVIDUALS many, I’ll argue MOST of us who volunteered to serve did so with at least a modicum of Patriotism as a cause. As the constitution says, we all carried out the orders of duely appointed superiors. No we were not and are not mindless automatons doing just what we’re told. We were and are trained men and women who agreed to serve the body politic to which we belonged… if you read what the men who founded the republic said they were trying to build and what they needed from the people of the nation it’s clear if largely forgotten As one, Thomas Jefferson said, he wanted a thinking and educated electorate. Yes, we followed orders but not blindly, not stupidly nor were we following clueless leaders. We consciouisly agreed to follow the leaders the Nation gave us to follow. What esle would have a do?

        • Toten,
          You’d have fit right in with our VVAW gang in the early 70’s.

          You’re blaming the wrong guys and gals though.

        • Thanks Ole’Wolf.

          One of the reasons we have so many ‘clueless leaders’ is that we have so many uneducated, clueless voters.

          ‘Course, hindsight usually is 20/20.

          • Bob – just like Totenglock’s comment about giving to charity, you’re dead on the money. It’s truly a shame when they ask voters leaving the polls, the people who just picked our leaders admit the chose based on any one issue or because they saw the face or name going into the voting… no wonder they ban electioneering within a certain distance of the polls. Look, the three of us can disagree all day – but at least we’re talking and thinking!

          • Anonymous – is Mai Lai the best you can come up with?! Drones killin’ kids in their beds in 4 different countries is a little more current. Do we do utterly stupid things – yes. Are more and more assholes in uniform trying to hide behind, “I was only following orders” – yes again. Has politics oozed down to the junior most ranks – oh yeah. BUT, the men and women committing the acts you talk about made a choice to commit them… it wasn’t blind or “uneducated.” They’re idiots and have no sense of Honor or Country…they’re trying to hide behind a mutated idea of Duty and should be charge, tried and jailed as appropriate. For the record, have you ever served? You claim following orders blindly are what we were trained to do… Were you trained to do that? I’d honestly like to know… I sure as hell wasn’t. Yes, the junior most privates and airmen and sailors and marines are taught to jump when told to do so… but the newest worker in any job or profession start with being only able to do what you’re told and then learn and grow into making decisions on the own the more experience, training, and education you get. Also, for the record- I completed enough training to fill 3 three inch binders with diplomas and every class I took included college credit in psychology, history, public speaking, avionics electronics, and more all certified by the Southern Association of Colleges. Every enlisted person gets such college credit. By the time I retired I walked out with two BAs, in Criminal Justice and Adult Education and one BS in Avionics Electronics. Why so diverse? I started as a airborne radar technician and crossed into military police when the fighters I worked on were retired. In the police I got into training. AND I WAS AVERAGE. You want, meet me for a cup of coffee and we can discuss particle physics… the LHC is doing GREAT things – Higgs Boson found looks like they might just confirm some of string theory! Or maybe group dynamics – I’m a believer in the Myers-Briggs offshoot of Carl Jung’s theories and still use Hershey and Blanchard’s situational leadership concepts. Or maybe gardening- I do square foot myself but have combined it with raised bed because of the weather and soil I deal with. Go ahead, yell I’m just name dropping to try and prove I’m smart or ed-u-kated. You see, a the Budo shosin-sho put a true samurai must study the arts, the sciences, and yes the tea ceremony. I’m no samurai- but that part of the Budo said it perfectly and so did the first law, “True courage lies in knowing when it is right to live, and when it is right to die.” I do, do you?

    • Then don’t contribute. That’s fine. Nobody’s telling you that you have to. I usually dig into my own wallet, but I don’t have the extra money this year, so I’m trying to help out by getting the word out. Some will read it and contribute; most will not. That’s fine.

      You will see this again a few more times between now and Christmas, and I’d take it as a personal favor if you didn’t shit all over it every single time.

      • Like most keyboard commandos, Totenglocke has the virtual stones to run his mouth when he has complete anonymity. If confronted in the real world, he would shrivel up into the impotent nut sack that he is.

      • Sorry bro, but when you want to bully / guilt people into giving money to those who already forcefully take our money, I’m going to speak out. It’s like if a gang demands “protection” money and then someone sets up a fundraiser to get them a gift for Christmas – they’ve already taken enough and it’s just adding insult to injury.

        • Nobodies forcefully taking your money, Tote. You and I live in a first world society with all that entails. Now, if paying your fair share offends you, immigrate. There are no rules saying you have to stay here. No Berlin wall. Leave. Problem solved.

          After all. your advice to we Californians is to just move. Follow your own advice.

        • TockenGlock
          Kindly point out where anyone is being bullied or pressed to donate to anything or else put a sock in it. A lot of the people overseas are NG troops with jobs and families taking time from their lives to serve their country.
          Unlike you.
          And they pay taxes too, even on their military pay overseas, which benefits

          You. Your crummy job as you put it qualifies you for tax rebates someone else pays for. Including me.

          I’ve never seen such vitriol towards troops before. Even the leftists proclaim support for the people while bashing their mission. You’re beneath them.
          Take your Glock ( if you even own one) and hit the road,

        • “Sorry bro, but when you want to bully / guilt people into giving money to those who already forcefully take our money, I’m going to speak out. “

          Bam! Ain’t it the truth! You know it is! There is no disputing it!

          This is crazy – Toten vs.
          United States Military.

        • I’m not bullying or guilting anyone. I’m telling them about it. What they do with that information is their business.

          To bully someone, I’d have to have pull over them. There’d have to be consequences for not doing what I want. I have to be able to influence their behavior. Does anyone here feel like that about me? As far as guilt, well, guilt is a personal decision. If you feel a twinge of guilt, that’s on you, not me.

          If anyone is doing any bullying here, it’s you, because the military doesn’t get mentioned around here without you jumping on your soapbox and repeating yourself incessantly until others throw up their hands and walk away.

          So I’m gonna ask you again. Please. You’re going to see this again a few more times between now and Christmas. Please don’t turn it into an argument every time you see it. There are myriad other posts around here to do that.

          (For the record, how’s this for “bullying?” If you chose to drop a steaming pile into the comments every time I mentioned LBEH, instead of asking you nicely, I could just delete your comments every single time, and I could probably get away with it without Robert slapping my hand. But that’s not what we do here, so that’s not what I do here, even though that’d be much easier for me.)

      • I just donated $150 despite being poor as fvck because it probably pisses off Death Bell up there. It is a worthy cause indeed. I knew a lot of enlisted men that couldn’t afford to go home to visit their families when we were deployed. Good on LBEH. Those guys and gals put themselves in harms way everyday in the service of the and at the behest of American people. They do this for very little pay, never complain about it and ask nothing of anyone. They deserve our respect and gratitude.

    • The plane tickets we pay for are only for “business trips”. Everything else is out of their own pocket including emergency leaves.

        • And so do my taxes and everyone else’s, but we’re not whining on the internet about it.

          Which brings up another point…if you actually do pay 30% of your income in taxes, you must live in a pretty magical tax bracket (which leads straight back to the quitcherbitchin thing).

        • How do you know that your money goes specifically into the pockets of the military? Maybe you pay the President’s salary, or an ATF employee, or maybe your taxes fund the Obamacare website.

        • Actually, Ing, I don’t – but due to our absurd tax system, I’m punished for being single and not choosing to have kids. My brother in law and I make the same amount (my sister is a stay at home mom), yet because I made better life choices I’m forced to pay three times more in taxes after tax credits / deductions.

    • Did you serve? I did and the cost of living was $1.56/hour to get shot at. I knew going in I wasn’t going to get rich but I didn’t know if I would be coming back. Just in case that equals $1123.20/month pre tax uniform care and maintenance came out of my pocket.
      Thanks for your support

    • “I already help military members pay for plane tickets – it’s called paying almost 1/3 of my income in taxes.”

      Nice. Way to dish out politically incorrect statements. Sure you must have known everyone was going to verbally slap you around after that statement.

      Paying over 20% tax myself – I know your pain. Us middle class unfortunately, are set up to bear the bulk of the weight. A lot of people think that if you pay a lot of tax you must be doing well. It is simply a false statement. Everyone self employed must pay a additional income tax (the self employment penalty). God forbid you work for yourself. Anyone who pays less tax is simply not working hard. The super rich are paying like 1% or less and they are maxing and relaxing while earning dividends. On the other end of the scale you have people filing for unemployment, popping out kids, purposely divorced, so they get free food, free money, free healthcare, and … a free cellphone. One thing is clear in America… it pays to do less.

      Regarding military overseas, I don’t believe they should be there. Surely those people must know that they are hostile invading troops from another nation (America). If Chinese were rolling down our roads with tanks, full military gear, and air support overhead… would resistance forces not arise out of this? America is policing them… and enforcing our rule over an otherwise sovereign nation in which we entered – uninvited. I think we should… bring all troops home and keep them here. I prefer a Switzerland approach. Train all our citizens in a reserve army and keep them here… on our soil.

      • “The super rich are paying like 1% or less and they are maxing and relaxing while earning dividends.”

        I would love to see where you get that information from. It is always hilarious to me to see people spouting off about taxes when they clearly have no understanding of the tax code.

        • Yeah I agree. I was exaggerating there – guilty as charged.

          That said, they are paying less of a percentage than I am.

    • Weird… Military members pay taxes too (unless actively deployed in a combat zone). I hate the “I pay taxes” argument. The military isn’t exempt from paying taxes. Military memember that choose to live on base actually make less money since they won’t be getting paid a housing allowance.

      • False. It is impossible for a government employee to pay taxes because their income comes from taxes. What you consider “paying taxes” is simply an accounting illusion. It’s like taking $100 out of your wallet and putting it in a bank, then taking $20 out and putting it back in your wallet – the amount you had never changed, it just shifted the location.

        • Toten – the point remains the government who paid my wage out of your taxes if you like, took about a 1/3rd BACK. However you cut it I couldn’t put the money into the economy because I didn’t have it. Man, you remind me of an old professor I took economics from- only active member of the communist party they let on the base back in the ’70s. Please, don’t take that as a cut, I don’t believe in communism but he was a honest man.

    • Folks, I remember in the 60s and 70s getting free eggs, spit, and other (painful things) hurled at me for wearing my uniform home on leave. I also remember enlisted folks being on food stamps. I’m glad that some things have improved.
      /BT

  2. Good thing the Philly machete wielders did not have a gun. They probably would have beaten their victim to death with it. Why? Because a machete is a slashing and hacking weapon. It is not intended for stabbing. It is more like a saber than a sword.

    • First, a saber is a sword. Second, a saber is very effective point weapon. In fact, according to Colonel Patton’s training manual for the cavalry, a cavalryman should be taught to stand up in his stirrups, with his arm and saber fully extended towards the enemy, and under no circumstance attempt to parry. Although the saber (and the katana) are most renowned for their cutting power, the fact is that a wielder has greater range in the lunge. The last US (and British) cavalry saber (the former designed by Patton who, in addition to his leadership qualities was also a renowned horseman, swordsman and shooting expert) was straight and has virtually no edge–it was a dedicated point weapon, even to the point of having the hilt designed to absorb the shock of impaling the opponent.

      now machetes on the other hand–most are made too flexible to have any effective penetration capability.

      • Patton’s M1913 saber was rather weighty, so even with a dull edge a good stroke was likely to do significant, even fatal damage. Try swinging 3 feet of 1/2″ rebar, the saber was heavier.

        • I guess that would depend on the rebar. A Patton saber weighs in at about 2.5 lbs, about on par with any other 35″ blade, and with the technology built into blades (they are not simply flat pieces of steel), the balance point should be about 4-5″ from the handguard–very different than a piece of rebar that balances at midpoint. And although it is certainly true that a blunt will cause damage, the point I made is that it was not designed for that purpose, and its penetration will be meager at best. In any event, the Patton’s is sharpened, but primarily to increase its thrusting potential. To see this in action, take a Patton and your rebar or machete, and stab each into an old mattress. I suspect both of the latter will bog down half way through, but not the Patton. (I’ve actually done this with a cheap Pakistani sword like object and a real sword (Angus Trim)–the difference was astounding.)

          The most effective cutting is to use only the last few inches of the blade in slash, but most wounds will be pretty superficial. It’s just like bullets–you have to hit something that bleeds a lot to achieve fatal wounds. When used in the thrust, this particular design will go in one side and out the other with virtually no effort unless bones are encountered–why muck around with anything less effective? It would be like using your Colt .45 to beat someone to death (could be done) versus just shooting him.

  3. Great video on velocities. Having been a glock guy and an armorer since the gen 1 glock, I kinda knew that. It’s nice to see a modern update.

    Matt, Keep plugging on the LBEH. It’s very worthy.

    BTW, Jeff Reed on the other web site you referenced, the gent with cancer, went home today.

    • Re: Jeff Reed

      Yeah, I saw that. There’s a picture of my trigger on page 147. Three hours after I posted it, Jeff’s wife put up the comment that he’s going home. An hour after that, I got an out-of-the-blue PM that read, “I saw your pic of your lower in Jeff’s thread. Looks like it’s missing some parts. Got an address?”

      This is how pay-it-forward works. It caught me by such surprise that I feel honor bound to find a way to do something for someone else.

      • Yup, folks paying dues for one another, triggers being put up for auction, it’s really neat.

        Here’s to paying it forward on this site. I’ve got a couple of brand new LPK’s. Figure a way to get me your address and I’ll send you one if the other doesn’t come thru.

        • I appreciate the offer. I don’t even know what he’s sending me.

          I also don’t know what I’m going to build on that lower. I really would love to do a 300 BLK SBR, but I don’t want to wait a year. Palmetto State’s had some 300 BLK 10″ uppers on sale lately; I suppose I could go the pistol route in the meantime.

  5. I have no problem with WoW style targets. Personally, I can’t stand that game. I got a free month subscription One time. Played a grand total of two hours.
    I’d rather hear my XD’s trigger click than a mouse click.

    • I played WoW for 7 years straight, minus a 6 month break around year 2.5. I let my sub lapse about 4-5 months ago, but they just announced a new expansion, and I’m getting the itch again.

      Speaking of that, I almost put in a comment about the strong World of Warcraft influence on those targets. I mean everyone knows dwarves, and everyone has a mental image of them, but if you showed me that dwarf picture with no context, I’d have assumed it was WoW fan art. His armor is pure WoW, and so is the flared barrel blunderbuss-style gun.

      Similarly, the death knight model also looks like WoW fan art, and on that one, it wouldn’t surprise me to see them get in a little copyright trouble. If you look at his sword, with the shape, and the runes, and the blue glow, and the skull on the hilt, and then look at the ultimate Death Knight weapon from WoW, Frostmourne, it’s impossible not to see the close similarity.

      Of course, you could say that WoW is derivative from everything that came before it, but still…

      • I haven’t played in about two years. Turns out that i just really liked Wrath. Didn’t take WoW too seriously before it and didn’t like cata. I got pretty good at the end game stuff in the closing days of Wrath, but i just got bored and now have no desire to learn what is essentially a new game.

      • Never played WoW actually, although I did play Warcraft 3 back in the day. My inspiration came more from things like D&D and the Elder Scrolls series. As for the sword being very Frostmourne-y, I actually looked at some pictures of it to make sure I wasn’t too close to it’s design, the original sketch was even more like it! As an artist you sometimes get subconsciously influenced by things, and need to make sure you’re not being too derivative. As for copyright, the nature of that stuff when it comes to fantasy art can be kinda tricky, I think we’re in the clear, but if not, it’s nothing a little altering can’t fix.

        • It’s good to hear you thought about it. It’d suck to see a promising little company get beat into the ground by an intellectual property behemoth like Blizzard.

      • I played WoW since the vanilla days. I stopped playing about two months ago. The thing I liked about WoW is that I can lose myself in the game. I did not do much raiding. What I did do a lot of was farming. I have 10 level 85 toons. Each toon has a different profession. All in all, I have every profession amongst my 10 toons. That way, I don’t have to go to the AH and buy the mats for what I need to make. I had four accounts at one time, then two. I’ve farmed so much that I had my DK whose profession is a BS/miner had so much ghost iron ores. So much so that I had to create additional characters to hide all the mats collected. Guild bank was full of mining mats all 7 tabs full. The additional characters were full of mining mats too. All with mining bags. All bags full including personal banks and the four bags they each carry. About 90% of the mats are high end…but, I digress.

        • Diablo, all three versions, were hit it and quit it for me. They just didn’t hold my interest. People say it all the time, but what kept me coming back to WoW was the people. There were a whole bunch of times that I was thoroughly burned out on the game, but the people I played with kept me coming back, whether out of pure friendship or simply the obligation I felt. (A lot of people don’t understand that second part; “How can you be obligated to a game and to a bunch of people you’ve never met?” I’d compare it to an intramural softball league, and usually that’d help them get it.)

          Even now, I’m moderately interested by the new expansion content, but the thing that’s pulling me back is reading my guild’s website and seeing all the old friends coming back online.

  6. Neat targets. I wished Games Workshop made targets, but they’re British and won’t/can’t get into the target biz. I’d love to pour some 9mm into some Orks or Chaos Space Marines.

    • As a matter of fact, if we get funded beyond our starting goal, one of the additional target packs we’d create would be a sci-fi set. Unfortunately the Warhammer style of characters are obviously copyrighted, but you can bet there will be our own vision of the “space marine” character.

      • Just throwing this out, but what about a Game of Thrones flavor set? I’m not sure exactly how much meat is on those bones or how much you could get away with legally but you’ve already got one that looks a bit like an Other.

        • Legally speaking, if you could look at it and go “oh, that GoT,” than we’ve crossed over the copyright line. So in the end we’d end up with a “light fantasy” target pack. Although I love GoT, so if they ever want to throw us the licensing to do that, I’d be down.

  7. I’d like to take one of those Orcish Operator targets to the range and randomly place a small charge of tannerite behind it. I’d roll a 12-sided die before each shot. Eventually I’d hit the tannerite at which point I’d yell “critical hit!” I would then level up.

    • Our targets actually have a built in game that my buddy/co-founder Tristan explains in one of our videos that you can watch on our Indiegogo page. As for the tannerite, I am absolutely going to try that out the next time I go to the range! For a real challenge, place it right behind the exposed lower-head of the Human Deathknight, which is its critical zone.

    • While the idea of basically a shoulder fired Mk19 is awesome without doubt, I think you’d have a hard time firing it without the rest of the Space Marine genetic enhancements- unless you’re Jerry Miculek, anyways. I won’t rule anything out for him.

      Actually, the only time I got chewed out in the Army for anything I did on my own was for carrying a Mk19 down the street on Ft Lewis during armorer’s school. CSM Green informed me in a very angry manner that it was designated as a two man lift.

  9. As a daily reader of TTAG, I really appreciate the bump by posting about Orcish Operator, thanks guys! If any of you have any questions about our targets feel free to ask! I’m the artist/ gun guy/ co-founder btw

  10. These targets put in mind of some of the multiverse roleplaying campaigns I’ve gamemastered. Typically, they would involve my players running themselves as player characters, having been sucked into a fantasy world while carrying their favorite firearms (convenient, that) and getting involved in Dungeons & Dragons style adventures.

    Turns out modern semiautos are extraordinarily effective against orcs. Against ancient dragons…not as much.

    • I think for dragons you’d need a ZSU-23, they could use their breath as a countermeasure system for shoulder fired missiles.

      • Let’s see: Using the game systems GURPS, a monstrous Western dragon has 90 hit points and stops 7 points of damage. Each shot from the ZSU-23 (using APDS ammo) does anywhere from 9 to 63 points of damage, and armor only protects for half its value. The ZSU-23 fires 800 round/minute, sustained.

        (GURPS has statistics for everything)

        If the ZSU-23 gets one good burst on the dragon, he’s toast.

  11. Totenglocke you’ve commented widely here and been more or less attacked for your words. Personally as a Vet myself I agree with what you’re trying to say in principle. You’ve voicing what a great many citizens have said after (sometimes during) every war we have fought as a nation. Looking at our history I can utterly guarantee in 10-15 years YOU will be speaking for the majority of the citizenship of the nation. Nor are you or anyone else here wrong – our speech is a fundamental principle of this nation, how else do we reach consensus?. My question to you is as simple as your original point about where you’re taxes go…What have you done to change the existing socio-political structure you obviously do not like? Do you vote? Do you go out and campaign in support of your choice of candidate? Have you voiced your opinion to your political leaders? PLEASE don’t say “waht good would it do. I’m only one person!” Our own history holds thousands of cases where one citizen made their case to a few who convinced more who changed the face of the nation and the history of the world millions more. Susan B Anthony…Prohibition… a little old lady who refused to give up her seat to a younger full grown man… it was never just one, but many many times, one started it all. So stop bitching and start pushing the boulder up the hill you’ll get help along the way from surprizing directions. Or just stop bitching about things you know nothing about and are unwilling to learn about or change.

  12. I like the velocity video, it’s a bit of a reality check for the velocity and ballistics snobs out there.

    H45 makes a good point in video, 100 fps more or less, from the various barrel lengths, doesn’t really matter much, knowing how to use it is the only thing holds any sway.

  13. The only time I’ve ever encountered the term “meat shield” before today was in online fantasy games like the ones the featured targets are based on. So I find all these comments pretty funny. Meat doesn’t make much of a shield in real life and gamers don’t always make for wise, responsible gun owners.

    I don’t even see how you could logically call forces the United States has deployed abroad “meat shields.” Doesn’t seem like they’re shielding much of anything. They’re more like meat grinders, for better or worse.

    I don’t agree with the foreign policy goals of the United States, but these soldiers are our countrymen and they are not well compensated. There is a reason that among many tax credits expiring at the end of the year (for hiring TANF recipients, felons, disabled people) the tax credit for hiring a veteran will remain.

    It is because the credit is needed to ensure veterans are employed, lest they rise up in anger as they have in the past. The next time the men who sacrifice for this country and the men who know the score rise up, it will not be as easy to put them down as it was after the first World War.

    The powers that be are well versed in the methodology of divide and conquer. The real enemy is hidden from us behind layers of historical and political deception. Taking out your frustration on veterans is misguided because most of them are just as frustrated as the rest of us and they have given up more than most to the system.

  14. I like our soldiers a lot more than I do our out of control federal law enforcement officers and intelligence agencies, even if I think the war in Afghanistan has been mishandled as hell and the Pentagon wastes a ton of money on ****.

    They ain’t perfect and the job attracts some losers and weirdos but they also aren’t confiscating civilians’ guns, arresting us for all sorts of trivial garbage, and shooting us in our driveways for looking suspicious.

    Matt, how come I can’t find these guys on Charity Navigator? I like to donate to organizations where I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the money’s going to the people who need it.

    Also, good on the San Francisco Police Officers Association and the NRA for suing over that ban.

    • I’d never heard of Charity Navigator ’til you asked, so I had to look it up. They’re on there, they’re just “unrated” because they’re “not eligible to be rated by Charity Navigator because it does not meet our criteria of having at least $1 million in revenues.”

      Their tax returns are available for viewing through their website. Click the banner and go to the FAQ, down near the bottom. Their goal is to keep administrative fees (bank, hosting, Paypal fees, etc.) below 5%. Last year it was 3.66%, iirc. The 3-4 people involved take no salaries for their efforts.

        • See, that statement I have zero problem with. I don’t even think you’re a bad person for not giving to charity. That’s your own decision, and everyone makes it for their own reasons.

          In all honesty, this is the only charity I’ve ever gone out of my way to give money to (other than occasionally, very occasionally, getting guilted into the “give a buck to the March of Dimes” or whatever things at the grocery store checkout, and even that might be once a year).

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