Well Said

I have had this idea in the back of my head for a long time, that somehow the loss of our common cultural identity in favor of cultural balkanization (blacks vs whites vs La Raza vs Native Americans vs ...) was not merely bad but ultimately fatal, but wasn't able to articulate it. Steve Schippert does a very nice job, here:

http://threatswatch.org/commentary/2008/07/my-country-tis-of-thee/

Getting a seperated shotgun hull unstuck

I had a reloaded shotgun hull seperate just in front of the brass, taking the top part of the hull up the barrel where it lodged about halfway to the bore.  Getting it out was a pain.  I tried a number of solvents and widgets none of which worked, and most of which just seemed to iron the plastic tube that is the top part of the hull closer to the bore.

I had googled around some looking to see if anyone else had this problem and what they did to fix it, but apparently I am the only person ever to do this, or at least the only one to admit it :-).  

Eventually what worked was giving it a good dousing of Hoppes #9 with a bore mop and letting it sit for a day.  Then, I got a wooden dowel and built it up to a tight bore fit with cleaning patches, then wound some steel wool twisted into a 1/8" worm in a spiral over that.  I put that down the muzzle until it wedged in the hull.  I tapped it firmly to get the steel wool to get a grip on the plastic, then pushed until it slid out.  I had to lean pretty heavily on the dowel to get it to break free.  

Anyway, if anyone knows of another, better way I'd be interested in hearing it, as I fully expect this may happen to me again.