EmptorMaven

This is a photo of the Kel-Tec KSG: A brilliant bullpup pump-action shotgun with dual selectable magazines and capacity for 14 rounds. It was just announced in January 2011. Because it’s a bullpup it will be easier to handle than any conventional shotgun. The parallel magazine tubes make a “switch-to-slug” operation as easy as flicking the magazine selector. Everybody who wants a pump-action 12-gauge and can afford it will buy at least one of these.

I hope a company with more manufacturing capacity copies this design. Kel-Tec produces several ingenious guns but they have never been able to meet demand. I know dealers who have been on waiting lists for guns like the Sub2000 and RFB for years. Demand for the KSG will certainly be orders of magnitude greater than anything they have yet produced. Freedom Group, please steal this design!

[March Update: Never mind! UTAS has announced they will begin domestic production this year of the UTS-15, a bullpup shotgun very similar to the KSG. Advantages over the KSG apparently include locating the magazine tubes above the barrel (for better recoil control), round-count indicators, and the ability to automatically alternate tubes with each shot (to keep it balanced). A disadvantage appears to be that it ejects sideways. The South African NEOSTEAD is another similar bullpup pump-action shotgun, and the only thing keeping it out of the U.S. is the silly BATFE restriction on importing shotguns that are not sufficiently suited to "sporting purposes."]

Corner protectors aren’t just for homes with little kids running around constantly bumping into things: I have learned through painful experience that the sharp corners on melamine-coated fiberboard easily rip through fabric and skin.

I run a round-off router bit over all my exposed woodwork edges whenever possible, but with glued melamine and some finished furniture you can’t do that. A few years ago I found some soft plastic corner cushions that unobtrusively provided excellent protection against scrapes and dented foreheads.

Recently I built a bunch of new shelves with exposed corners that I wanted to soften and I spent weeks looking for the same corner protectors. It turns out that my preferred solution is also by far the cheapest of the many competing products ($3.50 for eight), and that these are available only at Babies R Us.
Read the rest of this entry »