Field Test: Henry .45-70 lever action rifle

Courtesy of Henry Rifles, Riton USA, and photographer, blogger and friend of long standing, Oleg Volk, who put the 'package' together, over the past few months I've been evaluating Henry's .45-70 lever action rifle.  It's been an interesting journey.

I've long been interested in the .45-70 Government cartridge.  It dates back to the early 1870's, when it was developed for the US Army's Springfield Model 1873 'Trapdoor' rifle.  It was a slightly smaller evolution of the earlier .50-70 Government cartridge, offering better ballistics than its predecessor.  In its original loading, a 405 grain lead projectile was propelled by 70 grains of gunpowder to a muzzle velocity of almost 1,400 feet per second.  That remains the 'base' standard for the cartridge, but in certain modern firearms (including Henry rifles), a much 'hotter' version of the round can be fired, giving greatly improved performance against dangerous game such as grizzly bear.  The .45-70 has thus experienced a resurgence in popularity among North American hunters and professional guides.  (Indeed, Marlin's short Model 1895 .45-70 lever action rifle was named the 'Guide Gun' for this reason.)

I asked Oleg to arrange a review of Henry's Model H010 .45-70 lever action rifle, which is very similar to Marlin's Guide Gun in terms of size and intended purpose.  (Click the image for a larger view.)

It holds four rounds of ammunition, more than sufficient for hunting and defense against dangerous game provided the user aims accurately.  It can handle the most powerful modern rounds in the cartridge (up to and including the deservedly famous Garrett Hammerhead, Superjack and Exiter loads).  Other criteria for choosing the Model H010 included its steel receiver, which is dark and doesn't reflect sunlight.  Bright, reflective objects, such as the polished brass receiver of the Model H010B, can warn game that you're coming in time for them to take evasive action.  Also, the H010 has a recoil-absorbing rubber pad on the rear of the stock, unlike the H010B, which has a solid brass buttplate.

From painful personal experience on two continents, I know that a metal buttplate and hard-recoiling ammunition make for a very uncomfortable combination.  I'm sure the H010B is entirely tolerable with standard-pressure rounds, but I planned to test some of the hotter Garrett loads as well, which made the rubber recoil pad of the Model H010 a necessity.

Initial impressions of the Henry were very positive.  The woodwork is properly fitted to the rifle, with no annoying gaps betraying careless mass-production without adequate quality control (something that has annoyed many owners of other brands of firearms in the past, including myself).  The action was tight but smooth, right out of the box.  The rifle weighs 7.08 pounds, almost the same as Marlin's 7lb. Guide Gun.  That's enough to feel heavy after having to carry it for some distance;  but, when dealing with hard-recoiling ammunition such as I planned to use, the weight would be an advantage in soaking up the kick, so I wasn't averse to that.

This rifle doesn't have a frame-mounted reloading 'window', such as that found on Winchester and Marlin rifles.  Instead, a brass tube is withdrawn from the magazine, revealing a window in the bottom of the magazine tube (circled in red below) through which rounds are inserted base-first.

The brass tube is then reinserted, compressing a spring which holds the rounds tightly in position, ready for loading when the lever is operated.  This is slower in operation than a frame-mounted reloading 'window', but isn't necessarily a drawback unless rapid reloading becomes necessary.  Under normal hunting use, that won't be a factor . . . but I must confess, I prefer the option to 'shoot one, load one' offered by competing rifle designs.  That's an individual thing, of course, and didn't prevent this rifle being every bit as usable for hunting as any other.  I didn't feel the lack in practice.

Riton USA was kind enough to provide one of their Model 5 1.5-6x42 telescopic sights, with an illuminated reticle, for this test.

I'm a relatively small-time shooter, not a professional reviewer, and my budget has not (until Riton's generosity) allowed me the luxury of buying illuminated-reticle scopes.  I found this one made a dramatic difference in low-light shooting.  It provided a crisp, clear point of aim that helped the reticle stand out against a target at dawn and dusk, or in heavy overcast conditions.  The low-power scope was perfect for the .45-70 round, which isn't a long-range proposition.  I'd feel confident making shots out to 200 yards with this rifle and scope combination.  (Yes, I know the .45-70 has been tested at over a thousand yards, but that's not going to happen on your average hunt!)

The scope was initially mounted on the rifle using conventional 30mm. rings.

However, this positioned the scope too far back to be comfortable.  Accordingly, I remounted the scope using Monstrum Tactical 30mm. offset rings on top of an EGW Marlin Picatinny Rail Scope Mount.  This economical combination positioned the scope further forward, making the rifle much more comfortable to shoot.  I also installed a hammer extension, making it easier to cock the hammer beneath the scope's rear overhang.  The rear sight had to be removed from the barrel to fit the scope, of course, but that's common in such rifles.

As for ammunition, I tested the Henry using Hornady's excellent 325gr. FTX LEVERevolution rounds, plus a box of Garrett Hammerhead 420gr. super-hard-cast big-game loads.  The latter kicked much harder than the Hornady rounds, but I felt absolutely confident that they'd stop anything I was likely to encounter in my neck of the woods, up to and including the big boars sometimes found here.  That's a comforting feeling.

Accuracy was good for a lever-action rifle (which is never as 'tight' as a bolt-action rifle, in my experience, although perfectly adequate for field use).  Even with my ageing eyes, from a braced standing stance I could hold a 2½-3" group at 100 yards with the Hornady FTX rounds, and a 3½-4" group with the Garrett Hammerheads (for which I blame the much greater recoil of the harder-hitting cartridges).  I'm sure that if I'd shot seated, using a rest, I'd have shrunk the size of those groups by an inch or more - but then, that's hardly a fair test of a field hunting rifle.  I prefer to test them under the same conditions as those in which they'll be used.  I loaned the rifle to a younger friend, with better eyesight, to take on a field hunt, and he was able to record sub-2" and sub-3" groups respectively with the same loads.

The rifle proved very well balanced in my hands, and was easy to bring to my shoulder for snap shots at fleeting targets.  I think it may be the best hog-hunting combination in heavy brush that I've yet used.  The cartridge is more than powerful enough to take down the largest hog, even the big, tough, bad-tempered, cross-bred combination of feral pigs and Russian boars that some idiots sportsmen were foolish enough to introduce to Texas last century.  I plan on taking the rifle out again during the coming months, to see if I can stock up on wild pork.  I'm pretty sure this cartridge and rifle combination will perform as well on deer as any other lever action rifle, but they may be a bit heavy for typical whitetail.  I daresay they'll be better suited to larger breeds, given the .45-70's power.  I think the classic .30-30 remains the quintessential whitetail cartridge.

The use of this rifle and scope were arranged by Oleg Volk, who took the photographs above.  My grateful thanks to him, as well as to Henry Rifles and Riton USA for making them available to test.  Based on my experience, I'll gladly buy both companies' products in future.  I already own several Henry .22 rifles, which I've used for training and plinking for years.  I hadn't used Riton scopes before, but then, they're a relatively new company, established in 2013.  Based on this evaluation, I'll be giving careful consideration to their products for future use.  The test scope performed like a champion.

Peter

Signs you're in a North Texas laundromat

Our first clue was that there were very few standard household washing machines.  Most of them seemed to be four- or six-load-sized heavy-duty washers.  All the driers, without exception, were also big heavy-duty machines.

Next, the sign on the wall that read:

DO NOT WASH OIL SOAKED OVERALLS!

We presumed they'd have to be washed in a bucket of gasoline, or something similar, to remove the oil, and then thoroughly air-dried before they'd be allowed in the laundromat's washers to remove the smell of the solvent.

Finally, the sign next to the previous one read:

ONLY ONE HORSE BLANKET PER WASHER!

So that's where the itching sensation comes from!




Peter

Quote of the day

From Dr. Mingo at the Adaptive Curmudgeon's place, talking about Stihl chainsaws:

"The best chainsaws are their pro-series for the lucky few who sodomize Gaia."

Er . . . I . . . ah . . . well, if you say so!




Peter

Stealth technology hits the wind power industry

I've long known that wind turbine blades can cause massive interference to radar systems, so much so that wind power generation is usually banned within a reasonable distance of things like airports.  Now there may be a novel solution.  The Telegraph reports:

Defence and technology group QinetiQ has built 'stealth’ wind turbines which barely show up on radar.

The company has applied knowledge built up over 40 years in military applications to make a French windfarm consisting of 35 turbines each 400ft high appear to radar systems as if they were just 4ft high each.

EDF, the French state-owned power giant, turned to FTSE 250-listed QinetiQ for help after being refused permission to build the country's most powerful wind farm at a site near Perpignan, southern France, because the giant towers and spinning blades of the turbines would interfere with radar systems used to predict weather.

. . .

Military stealth works to defeat radars using multiple frequencies while weather radar is narrow band so on the face of it producing a stealthy turbine should have been simpler than most military applications.

However, Mr Moore said it turned out to be extremely challenging.

“The aerodynamic shape of the turbines blades couldn’t be altered significantly because they would become inefficient and we couldn’t put a stealthy coating on because it would be thick and heavy, which would also make them inefficient,” he said.

In the end the company designed blades made out of composite materials which absorb radar waves and turn it into heat, while a special cladding was put on the towers and the generators themselves to make them disappear to radar.

There's more at the link.

I find this fascinating, for two reasons.  First, if turbine blades (and their supporting towers) can be made less visible to radar, will they pose a greater risk of collision to low-flying aircraft?  I can see military planes, flying nap-of-the-earth, running slap into one if they can't see it coming on their electronic systems.  Second, can the same technology be applied to helicopter rotors?  Rotors are one of the most visible parts of any helicopter on radar systems.  If they can be made radar-invisible, a full 'stealth helicopter' can't be far away - and that has huge implications for Special Forces infiltration and exfiltration operations.

Most interesting . . .

Peter

Russia upgrades its Special Forces

The former Soviet Union always placed emphasis on special forces, usually in the form of its so-called 'Spetsnaz' units, but also in a few more specialized outfits like the anti-terrorist Alpha Group.  This continued in Russia after the breakup of the Union, and they've been particularly active in the Ukrainian conflict and in Syria.  Now, it seems, they're being taken to the next level.  Austin Bay writes:

Russia has acknowledged that its newest special operations unit, the KSO (Special Operations Command) has been operating in Syria. KSO was being discussed in Russia since 2013 but little was revealed officially. KSO appeared to be an elite Russian special operations unit more like the British SAS or the American Delta Force than the less selective special operations personnel Russia had favored in the past. It also became known that KSO has fewer than a thousand personnel, most of them operators (commandos) and all are volunteer professional soldiers who not only operate like their Western counterparts but have been seen using some of the same equipment. This includes special rifle sights, military rifles and high-end protective gear. Most of this stuff is available commercially, although often only to government agencies (to keep it away from criminals).

Like their Western counterparts Russian special operations troops are trained to do a variety of missions. These include reconnaissance (often deep into enemy territory), provide security for very valuable people or equipment and carry out “direct action” (raids).Russian spetsnaz (the less selective predecessor of KSO) did this in Afghanistan in the 1980s and in the Caucasus since the late 1990s but not in Syria. That’s because Russia wants to avoid casualties in Syria as these are very unpopular in Russia. Spectacular victories, on the other hand, are still popular and Russia had figured out how the West had used more highly skilled operators (like SAS and Delta) as a backbone or spearhead for other special operators in special situations, like Afghanistan in 2001 and for the effort to kill bin Laden and many other senior Islamic terrorist leaders and, more importantly, capture useful secrets most of these men had with them. It turned out that KSO was a key element in making the quick takeover of Crimea work. KSO is still a threat to Ukraine but it was apparently intel and advice from KSO operatives that prevented Russia from getting into even more trouble in eastern Ukraine (Donbas).

. . .

There are still differences between Western and Russian special operations forces. Unlike the U.S., where the commandos have their own military command (SOCOM or Special Operations Command) in Russia the spetsnaz work more closely with the various intelligence agencies. GRU apparently had a 2014 plan for taking over Crimea in a way that would cause the least amount of diplomatic and military damage and the spetsnaz units GRU controlled were the key operators able to make it happen. KSO also got involved but GRU took the lead. KSO was the new player and performed well. A year later KSO showed up in Syria where KSO was the lead special operations unit there.

There's more at the link.  Recommended reading for anyone interested in the application of 'unconventional' military tactics and units to complex geopolitical circumstances.

This development is interesting from two perspectives.  One is the legendary Russian ruthlessness in dealing with its enemies.  I'm sure many people remember the kidnapping of Russian diplomats in Lebanon in the 1980's.  It led to Alpha Group becoming involved in a famous incident.

Jerusalem Post diplomatic correspondent Benny Morris uncovered the most compelling reason why the three Soviets were released, emaciated and tired, but otherwise unharmed.

According to Morris, the KBG determined the kidnapping to be the work of the Shiite Muslim group known as Hezbollah, or Party of God. This was the same radical pro-Iranian faction that figured so belligerently in the mass hostage-taking from the TWA airliner at Beirut Airport last June.

Unlike the approach the United States used to resolve the TWA crisis, however, the Soviets did not bother negotiating with Hezbollah through Nabih Berri, Lebanon's justice minister and leader of the Shiite Amal militia.

Instead, the KGB kidnapped a man they knew to be a close relative of a prominent Hezbollah leader. They then castrated him and sent the severed organs to the Hezbollah official, before dispatching the unfortunate kinsman with a bullet in the brain.

In addition to presenting him with this grisly proof of their seriousness, the KGB operatives also advised the Hezbollah leader that they knew the indentities of other close relatives of his, and that he could expect more such packages if the three Soviet diplomats were not freed immediately.

The message was a lot more extreme than Ronald Reagan's vague allusions to using "Rambo next time," but the swift release of the three remaining hostages indicated that the Hezbollah big shot couldn't handle having terror shoved back in his face.

Post reporter Morris quoted unidentified observers in Jerusalem as noting:

"This is the way the Soviets operate. They do things - they don't talk.

"And this is the language the Hezbollah understand."

Again, more at the link.  I daresay the new Russian SF unit will not be any less ruthless in achieving its objectives.

The second interesting aspect is how US special forces have often worked in countries where this country is (officially, at least) not engaged in hostilities.  They've trained local armed forces and 'spread the gospel' of special forces activities as a counter to terrorist activities.  It's been claimed that SOCOM deployed various US special operations troops to 135 countries in 2015 alone.  If Russian special forces begin similar activities, will their SF find themselves in the same countries as our SF, and what will be the result?

Food for thought.

Peter

So this is what France considers "without major incident"???

I think the French must have some rather peculiar definitions of a "major incident", if this report is anything to go by.

Vandals in France torched 945 parked cars over New Year's Eve in an arson rampage that has become a sinister annual "tradition" and amid a row over whether the government had sought to play down the figures.

According to the French interior ministry, the total of 945, which included cars that were either "totally destroyed" or "more lightly affected", amounted to a 17 per cent rise compared to last year.

Despite this, New Year's Eve "went off without any major incident", the interior ministry insisted in a statement, adding that there were only "a few troubles with public order".

In fact, police arrested 454 people over the night, 301 of whom were taken into custody.

. . .

The custom of setting vehicles alight on New Year’s Eve is said to have kicked off around Strasbourg, eastern France in the 1990s, in the city’s deprived, high-immigrant districts.

It quickly caught on among disaffected youths in cities across the country, and is seen by some as a litmus test of general social unrest.

There's more at the link.

The phrase 'deprived, high-immigrant districts' refers, of course, to the infamous banlieues, hotbeds of unassimilated Arab and Islamic immigration and - as tragically demonstrated over the past couple of years - offering relatively safe haven for Muslim fundamentalist terrorists.

All I can say is, if a group like Black Lives Matter, or illegal South American aliens, were to torch 945 cars across the USA on New Years Eve, the uproar would be deafening.  Many police forces would today be facing withering criticism for their failure to protect private property, and some of their administrators would probably lose their jobs over their incompetence.  Many private citizens are likely to have taken steps to defend their own vehicles, with the probable result that several of the perpetrators would now be cooling off in the morgue - and much of the rest of the country would be applauding.

"Without any major incident", eh?  I suppose that depends on what you define as a major incident;  and that, in turn, depends on the extent to which political correctness has infiltrated your national, regional and local administrations, and rendered them lame ducks.  Please God, we haven't gone that far down that road in this country . . . at least, not yet.




Peter

Word

Received via e-mail, origin unknown:

True dat . . . and those poles look depressingly familiar, from my own military past!

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #947

Today's award goes to a hapless crewman aboard a South Korean P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft.

The Navy said one of its P-3CK four-engine anti-submarine and maritime surveillance aircraft reported dropping three Harpoon missiles, a torpedo and depth charges while on a routine mission over the East Sea.

"One of the plane's crew mistakenly touched the emergency weapons release switch at around 6:10 a.m.," an official source said. The weapons fell into waters 30 miles east of Yangyang on the country's northeastern coast.

"There was one fishing boat in the area but it sustained no damage," he said.

There's more at the link.

If the plane was near or over the fishing boat at the time, I imagine the fishermen needed a change of underwear!  I daresay the offending aircrew member did too, after getting back to base and being royally reamed out for discarding weapons that, in total, will cost well into seven figures to replace.  Not a career-enhancing move, that . . .

Peter

19th-century tools of war in 21st-century conflict?

We know Syrian and Iraqi militants (many of whom are terrorists by any other name) have been making their own improvised weapons for some time (see here for some examples).  However, this home-made improvised cannon on the back of a truck, courtesy of bmashina's Tumblr page, made me blink.

It reminds me of nothing so much as the muzzle-loading cannon common in European warfare from the Renaissance through the Napoleonic wars, or the early breech-loading cannon that succeeded them.  See, for example, this British Ordnance BL 12 pounder 7 cwt breech-loading artillery piece from the 1880's.

One wonders whether something like the older cannon didn't serve as a visual inspiration for its home-made modern equivalent (and whether a museum specimen didn't help the designer of the latter weapon to figure out how to construct it).  It looks as if a hydraulic piston from a modern piece of earth-moving or construction equipment was used as a recoil-absorbing mechanism.  Ingenious, but a bit frightening if something lets go at the wrong moment!

Peter

A helpful hint for cat owners

Now that we have two cats, we've had to double our litter boxes, too, and deal with competition between our feline masters for possession of the most desirable one.  (What it is that makes one better than the other, we haven't quite figured out yet, but clearly it's important to them!)

We've also had to deal with increased odor from our cats' digestive detritus.  We use non-scented Precious Cat kitty litter, which we find is very absorbent and minimizes the dust problem;  but, being non-scented, it can get odoriferous after a while.  We tried adding NonScents deodorizer from time to time, which helped, but didn't last long under heavy use - and that got expensive.

Fortunately, in reading reviews of our kitty litter on Amazon.com, several reviewers mentioned adding a fish tank odor-neutralizing product, Marineland's Diamond Blend.

Reviewers claimed that when added to kitty litter, it neutralized the ammonia scent of cat urine very well.  I tried it, and was instantly impressed.  What's more, it's very affordable.  Where NonScents cost us $10.99 for 16 ounces (or 69c per ounce), Diamond Blend costs only $7.29 for 50 ounces (or 15c per ounce).  We're still working out how much to use, but it looks as if one 50-ounce jar will cater for at least one 40 pound bag of kitty litter, and perhaps more.  We'll be able to be more specific after a bit more experience.

I now have a cat litter box in my study (albeit only because Kili, our adult female, became insistent on peeing in the corner of my office, and wouldn't be persuaded otherwise;  so we made a virtue out of a necessity).  By adding Diamond Blend to it, the odor is almost unnoticeable, even just after it's been used, so I can carry on working without problems.  The other litter box is in our bathroom, where the same applies.

We're very glad to have found a solution to the smell problem.  I thought readers who own cats might like to try it for themselves.  It seems pretty effective.

Peter

Have the USA's armed forces lost their edge?

Austin Bay has written a very interesting (and very worrying) appraisal of morale and structural problems in the USAF's strategic missile forces.  Here's an excerpt from his analysis.

The latest assessment concludes that the problems persist because so much of the equipment on these missile bases is so old that many components are no longer made and the shrinking air force budget cannot meet demands for expensive improvisations. As a result the missile bases are considered a bad assignment because so much stuff is ancient and breaking down. All this was made worse by the post-Cold War air force leadership stressing “zero defects”, micromanagement and political correctness. This stuff made matters worse at the missile bases. These three items made it particularly difficult to admit that they were key problems and as a result morale among officers and airmen was low and staying low because despite the headlines about “fixing the problem” things got worse, especially when it came to living and working conditions in these rural bases. The problems were particularly harsh during cold weather, which in this area, near the Canadian border, have always been a challenge.

The problems got so bad that in the last few years that some officers were punished for being too harsh in their efforts to improve discipline and performance of subordinates. While Air Force commanders want discipline and performance improved in the missile forces, it must be achieved in a politically correct manner. That, the latest analysis of the situation concluded, had become a major part of the problem and a massive obstacle to any solutions.

By 2012 a growing number of Minuteman launch officers were suspended from launch duty for months at a time so they could receive more training and new procedures developed and implemented to ensure that all regulations were being followed. There was apparently a breakdown in training and leadership in their squadron (which controls 50 silos) and wing (which controls three squadrons). Air force leadership also believes that there is still an attitude problem among those who maintain and operate the ICBMs.

. . .

Now the air force finds itself with a morale and performance problem that has gotten worse. Despite studies showing that commercial firms had found ways to solve similar problems the generals put in charge of the nuclear weapons have not, so far, accepted this as a solution and continued to insist that the problem is not as bad as it appears (it is) and that they have it under control (they don’t). The most senior air force management is somewhat aware of how this has gone off the rails but continue to have problems dealing with it.

. . .

But there was another problem. The air force has lost its appetite for improvising and coming up with practical solutions for any problems encountered. The officers and NCOs who staffed SAC in the early years were World War II veterans had understood the need to be quick and practical at detecting and fixing problems. They were replaced with a generation of Vietnam War vets but by the 1990s these were all gone and solutions tended to be more bureaucratic and “cover your ass” than practical. So while the SAC attitudes may be back, the mentality that made those hard-ass attitudes motivate people are not there. It turned out it was all an “attitude problem” and it was the senior leaders who were most responsible. Still no sign of a fundamental change and out on the northern prairie airmen still struggle to make a broken system work.

There's a lot more at the link.  If you're interested in military affairs and strategic deterrence, it's well worth your time to click over there and read the whole thing.

The problem is, of course, symptomatic of a wider issue:  the politically correct makeover of the US armed forces as a whole.  Speaking as a combat veteran, I know full well that the job of an armed force is to break things and kill people on command.  It's as simple as that.  There's no politically correct way to sugar-coat that reality . . . but politicians keep trying to do so.  They also prefer to spend money on things that garner votes for them, like entitlement programs, rather than on expensive military hardware that may, or may not, be needed.

The Obama administration in particular (with the active cooperation of both parties in Congress and the Senate) has cut military spending so much that, as I write these words, the US Navy currently has no aircraft carriers at sea at all.  Many of its ships are months or even years behind in scheduled maintenance, because there's no money available to pay for it.  Similarly, much of the equipment of the US Army and US Marine Corps is in urgent need of modernization., and the US Air Force's aircraft have an average age of no less than 27 years.  They're wearing out.  (Last year, the USAF and the Marines had to raid aircraft in museums, taking parts off them to repair aircraft in active service, because their stocks of spares were so denuded.  If that doesn't speak volumes, I don't know what does!)  The upper command structures of our armed forces have also been filled with general and flag officers whose views were considered politically acceptable by the outgoing administration.  That doesn't fill me with confidence in their military abilities.

I hope and trust that President-elect Trump and his nominee for Secretary of Defense, retired General Mattis, will be able to turn things around;  but that can't happen overnight.  The Obama administration has left our defenses in a parlous state.  It'll take time to restore them to what they should be.  I hope our adversaries give us that time . . . because if they don't, there won't be much we can do about it in the short term.

If anyone's hearing echoes of the situation in 1941, you're not alone.  Let's hope we're all wrong.

Peter

A happy and blessed New Year to all my readers

I'll be joining Miss D., Old NFO, Lawdog, Phlegmmy and ae_pilotjim to see in the new year tonight.  With a gathering like that, it promises to be a lot of fun.

I also have a new toy to show off.  Santa came late to my local gunshop, leaving a mint-condition Smith & Wesson Model 69 in the used gun case, where I could see it and snap it up before anyone else did.  The price was affordable, and I had a couple of trade items to spare, so the deal was speedily done.  I picked it up this morning.  I'm looking forward to comparing it side-by-side with my Taurus Tracker .44 Magnum revolver (the success of which spurred Smith & Wesson to introduce their competing, very similar Model 69).  Look for a range report soon.

I hope all of you have a wonderful New Year's Eve.  May 2017 be better for all of us than 2016!  God bless.

Peter

Bollywood again . . .

Continuing our occasional series of over-the-top Bollywood fight scenes:

What was that about the law of gravity again?

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #946

Today's award goes to the hapless driver of a Range Rover on the Fraser Island ferry in Australia.  A tip o' the hat to reader Snoggeramus for the link.

Shocking video has emerged of a four-wheel-drive rolling off a barge and into the waters between Fraser Island and the mainland on Saturday morning.

. . .

Tourist Katrina Lawrence, who was aboard the barge, said the incident was "quite bizarre".

She said the boat was departing from Inskip Point at Rainbow Beach, about 150 kilometres north of the Sunshine Coast, on its way to the island and was about a quarter of the way across the Great Sandy Strait.

Ms Lawrence said the 4WD, which was part of an adventure tours group, began sliding off the barge about 11am, causing panic on the boat.

One man tried to stop the vehicle by grabbing onto it with his one free hand, but because he was wearing thongs he slid across the deck with the car.

"There was no way they could have grabbed it, it was a slow roll but a heavy car," Ms Lawrence said.

There was widespread panic onboard the vessel and concerned patrons rushed to check whether their vehicles were secure.

Only one vehicle was lost and about 30 seconds later Ms Lawrence said the 4WD sank.

There's more at the link.  Here's the video.

The handbrake is there for a reason . . . just sayin' . . .

(I'd also like to know why the barge's ramp was still in the down position.  If it had been up, the vehicle wouldn't have been able to roll off.  I suspect a crew member may also have been a doofus . . . )

Peter

So much for corporate publishing

A rather idiotic article in the Huffington Post postulates that self-publishing is "An Insult to the Written Word".  Here's an excerpt.

The problem with self-publishing is that it requires zero gatekeepers. From what I’ve seen of it, self-publishing is an insult to the written word, the craft of writing, and the tradition of literature. As an editor, I’ve tackled trying to edit the very worst writing that people plan on self-publishing just because they can.

. . .

I have nothing against people who want to self-publish, especially if they’re elderly. Perhaps they want to write their life story and have no time to learn how to write well enough to be published traditionally. It makes a great gift for their grandchildren. But self-publishing needs to be labelled as such. The only similarity between published and self-published books is they each have words on pages inside a cover. The similarities end there. And every single self-published book I’ve tried to read has shown me exactly why the person had to resort to self-publishing. These people haven’t taken the decade, or in many cases even six months, to learn the very basics of writing, such as ‘show, don’t tell,’ or how to create a scene, or that clichés not only kill writing but bludgeon it with a sledgehammer. Sometimes they don’t even know grammar.

There's more at the link.

In response, fellow author, blogger and friend Larry Correia has written one of his magnificent fiskings.

Oh… Wait… Laurie is being serious. Dear God.

At this point I realized that Laurie wasn’t providing writing advice for people who actually want to make a decent living as writers. She is providing advice to people who want to be aloof artistes at dinner parties, before they go back to their day job at Starbucks.

As for what Laurie says about gatekeepers, it is all horse shit. She has no flipping idea what she’s talking about.

Publishers are the “gatekeepers”. If they like you, you’re in, and if they don’t like you, you’re out. Problem is, at best they only have so many publishing slots to fill every year, so they cater to some markets, and leave others to languish. And at worst, they are biased human beings, who often have their heads inserted into their own rectums.

. . .

Editors try to make the author’s stuff better. Period. They aren’t gate keepers, because it is their job to make the stuff that got through the gate suck less (seriously, the HuffPo should hire one).  Only self-published authors can hire editors too. Andy Weir hired Bryan Thomas Schmidt to edit the original self-published The Martian. Last I heard that book did okay.

. . .

These gatekeepers are assessing whether or not your work is any good.

The problem is that “good” is subjective. What you personally think is “good” is irrelevant when there are a million consumers who disagree. I wouldn’t buy a copy of Twilight, but the author lives in a house made out of solid gold bars. “Good” is arbitrary. The real question is whether your product is sellable (and yes, it is just a product, get over yourself).

Again, more (a lot more) at the link.  It's highly giggle-worthy.

The biggest single problem is that people like Laurie Gough (the author of the HuffPo article) are arrogating to themselves the right to prescribe how people like me should publish our books.  Unless we follow their One True Path, we're beyond the pale, unworthy of consideration as 'serious' authors, beyond contempt.  Trouble is, her 'gatekeepers' of which she's so fond have proven themselves to be unworthy of consideration too.  They've become obstacles to their own success, never mind anyone else's, because they're trapped in a big-business, big-bucks world of corporate success, rather than focusing on the creative artist and figuring out how to 'monetize' their creativity.  There are a considerable number of self-published authors (Larry Correia, Andy Weir, Hugh Howey, and so on - I could name dozens) who are very successful indeed (some are multi-millionaires) - but who were rejected by untold corporate 'gatekeepers' before they became successful.  Rather than become discouraged, they stepped out on their own and succeeded anyway.  In many cases, that's led to offers from and contracts with traditional publishers.  Others have remained independent, and are quite happy that way.

Simon Owens has pointed out that "Book publishers are incentivizing midlist authors to abandon them".

So we have these [self-published] authors who have built up fanbases consisting of thousands of readers, readers who gladly shell out money for each subsequent book, and yet the publishers are abandoning these authors in droves. Why?

Well, over the past few decades, what was once a diverse publishing field has consistently coalesced, through acquisitions and mergers, into an industry with only four major publishers. What’s more, these major publishers are owned by even larger, multi-billion dollar media conglomerates:

Simon & Schuster is owned by CBS, HarperCollins is owned by NewsCorp, Penguin and RandomHouse are jointly owned by Pearson and Bertelsmann, and Hachette is part of an enormous French company called Lagadère.

So when you’re a company that’s dealing with revenues in the billions (with a B), suddenly a product that can only sell a few thousand units and is ultimately “unscalable,” isn’t worthy of investment. So instead they invest in products that have the potential to not only sell millions of units, but also spawn spin-off merchandise and movie deals.

Amazon, with its ecommerce system and now its Kindle publishing platform, has figured out how to scale midlist authors, and is therefore willing to gobble up those writers the big publishers turn away, offering them a bigger cut of their sales in the process.

But this, I believe, is to the long-term detriment of the publishers. Because now a new generation of writers is growing up on the Amazon platform, using social media and email lists to market its books, and several of these writers will advance from selling merely thousands of books to selling millions. And once they’re selling millions of books and collecting 70 percent of each copy sold, it’ll be extremely difficult for those conglomerates to lure the authors back under their umbrella with the promise of a puny 10 percent of cover price royalty. By abandoning the midlist to Amazon, publishers are hastening their own demise.

More at the link.

I agree with Mr. Owens' analysis.  Even though I had been traditionally published in non-fiction back in the 1980's, I didn't even try to get through the obstacles of the 'gatekeepers' before publishing my first efforts at fiction.  I knew it would be almost impossible to do so, given their present business structure and focus.  Instead, I planned on doing it myself, and began working on it as far back as 2005.  I kept hard at it for several years before I felt I was ready, and self-published my first novel back in 2013.  (You can read about my plans and progress in this 2013 article, if you're interested.)  Thanks to your support, I've been able to achieve moderate success so far, and I look forward to even greater success in future.  What's more, my self-published sales numbers were sufficiently large to interest a publisher in picking up my Western series, as well as some of my science fiction, so I now straddle the line between self- and traditionally-published works.  If I can do it, I don't see why anyone who's prepared to work hard and has a modicum of talent can't do so as well.

So much for Ms. Gough's argument . . .

Peter