and my wants are a six pack of Black Rabbit, a wide screen TV, and a new scope for my RAI rifle (I broke it hitting some joker in holding with it).

What's an RAI rifle? Bolt-action, I think.

Its a Modified Model 350 RAI Long Range Rifle - the model 300 was desiged to fire the standard 7.62 MM cartridge, the Model 350 is a beefed up variation designed to fire a .50 cartridge. Packs a hell of a punch, specially when you use Teflon Brass Jacketed AP rounds.
Stopping power up the ass and can shoot a perp up to 4650 ft away.
It has a nice bi-pod stand for stable shooting, a easy to load side mounted 7 round magazine,
a nice tragetting scope (not one of those battery powered jobs, the classic targeeting sights I prefer)
and a soild mahogany stock (my addition). Its a nice gun, I call her Betty. I know that using .50 to pick off some perp is extreme, but oh the feel, its almost a religious experience.

I didn't get the nickname " One Shot " for nothing. Just be glad Im on your side *-). Besides, I order the ammo from you anyway Ron.

Besides, I seldom use the flash suppressor or the silencer, or the special rounds (wink).

Yea you gotta be real aware of background when using .50s..

Tell me bout it, one time put a bullet through the guy's hand to disarm him, so he's handless right now, it worked, the round then proceeded to pass through his car, the leg of his partner who was standing on the raised curb, (he didn't need that knee cap), a cinderblock wall behind them, three metal 50 gal drums, and finally came to stop in someone's engine block as it ripped into yet another car. I don't care what you say, that was a nice shot.

"That's why I say, hey man, nice shot."

Center mass is obviously the best target. Lots of organs, and a miss is still a possible headshot.

Trick shots aside, I don't want to kill somebody, just disable them. I had to kill somebody in the line of duty once, and I won't do it again unless I can help it. But against beasties, I prefer a nice clean head shot. Let see them regenerate that.

Some can actually regenerate if the head is missing. That's why its important to know what you're fighting and how to really kill it.

That may be true Bert, but without a head it does leave a nice opportunity to lob a K-19 Thermite Grenade down the bloody stump.

Some things are immune to that too. Vampires for example.

The bullet would bounce off in the first place, but assuming you used a silver one and blew its head away like a rotten melon being dropped off a building it'd just regenerate. The thermite would probably ignite its clothing but it wouldn't actually do anything to the vamp. If you didn't take advantage of its all too brief incapacitation to stake it you'd be SOL.

That's a tough one on all levels. I'm not saying I'd gamble it, but if this .50 toy of Ben's is as powerful as everyone says it is, there's a chance that it'd take a vamp's head off for a few seconds, at best.

I don't know exactly what a thermite grenade is/does, but I do know that vampires don't like fire, and tend to burn pretty good. Not as nicely as their cousins the Strigoi, but they do burn, nonetheless.

Nevertheless, nothing beats a good stake to the heart when it comes to vamps.

Greetin's From Maine

Not to argue with the experts, but first off, bullets as of my knowledge don't bounce off the vamps, they tend to go in, and most of the times right through. It is just that their regenerative power is fast enough to recover from such injures that conventional weaponry does little good. Most bullets rely heavily on hydrostatic shock to stop 1) cause damage, and 2) stop the target in its tracks (shock).
Vamps are immune to hydrostatic shock, but having a foriegn object pass through their body still hurts it, it just doesn't kill it.

Large caliber rounds ike a .50 will do massive damage, just nothing permanent and Bert is correct, the damage is regenerated quickly, but in regards to having one's blown off, it is a rather effective means of slaying one.

From my own personal experience and my grandfather's journal there are numerous ways to actually slay a
vamp; decapitation does do the trick quite nicely, fire they burn quite nicely, silver works against most undead, strong acid, holy water (works just as well), the stake through the heart, removal of the heart, daylight, strong simulated UV light (will hold them bay), explosives will do damage but unless you manage to literally blow them to pieces (the whole heart thing) they come back. As for the k-19 Thermite, it burns 10 times hotter than napalm and can turn a vamp to ash in 1.5 seconds after ignition.

K-19 is not the higest grade of thermite, but it is what Jarvis Kopek was able to get for me.

I also came to notce that a weapon called a Flechettes; shoots at a rate of 5000 rounds per minute fired at speeds over 3000 feet per second. It is capable of shredding a Great White snout to tail in one & a half seconds. It is more like a nail gun in the fact tht it shoots finned piecs of tungsten wire, but that can easily be adapted to shoot silver or rosewood. A nasty weapon that runs about $1,200 each.

Nows thats a way to say "howdy"!

I have never seen a vampire take damage from anything other than Wood, Silver, Water, or Sunlight. I've tried. I've found bullets flattened on the ground after they've impacted against a vampire. The only time I ever killed a vampire with fire was when the sprinkler system engaged.

In my experience, whether or not something goes through or bounces off harmlessly, and the effects those have had on a vampire, have depended quite heavily on the force being applied behind the object in question.

Hmm... Perhaps vampires in different areas have different sources for their powers, and therefore, are affected by different things in different ways...?

Could be. Its also possible we're talking about various vampire-like creatures.

Could be. I know that Wampyrs and Strigoi are the most notable variants on standard vampires, but I won't argue that it's possible that more, less notable variations exist...perhaps variants that are close enough to still be considered "standard", but just react differently to different...shall we say, stimuli.

Holister wrote:And so says KT, the fighting philosopher. Being a druid, a may have to take KT's word as a final judgement on this until I hear otherwise. Its not like someone could attempt to contaminate the lines of power or anything. All that raw PPE, hell, that would be catastrophic wouldn't it. But it ain't the case here, no sir. Just a bad winter right KT.

(I think I need a beer right now).

I forgot to respond to this...

Ben, you're from way up north. You know that killin' winters happen. It doesn't take a weather machine for us up here to get winters like that.

Hell, in Wisconsin, July's the only month where they've never experienced snow, before. And I'd challenge anyone to tell me that they've had crazed snow-philes living up there for the past gods-alone-know-how-long, causing it to snow pretty much throughout the year.

The bad winters come up. It happens. Nothing to be done for it.

'Course, if I can tie this back to the original subject, I don't think the bad winter is the cause for the mass deaths, since in Australia, it's summer, right now...

Sounds like a solid theory.

Tell me bout them mean winters. Im lucky that the station's lines haven't been taken out from the ice build up. What would normally be a five minute drive to work takes me the better part of half an hour. Yeah, the winters up here are harsh, but it keeps the baddies inside as well.

KT is right though, its summer in Australia, maybe all them birds just into a very large jet engine. *-)

Alright, how about this. Thinking back to the earth's magnetic grid... anyone noticed that texas is almost directly a global opposite to aussie-land? I think anyway.. Coincidence?

Just looked for exact coordinates, myself. They're not quite exact opposites, but they do seem damned close...

You might be onto something there, Razor.

When I was under instruction by my previous teacher, I spent a good amount of time studying meta and quantum physics. The earth's geomagnetic and ionic grids were something we spent a damn lot of time on. We pretty much have it mapped out, and I would be willing to bet that these incidences are right around either 7.5 or 30 degrees offset from one another when compared with the planet's centerline. That's just a rough estimate. We never had any notes written down, so I'm having to remember from memory.

Can you get a reading on that KT?

I can't get an exact reading, but if you reverse the readings for the Lat and Long of Texas, then the eastern border of Texas is roughly 8 degrees or so west of the western border of Australia...and their centers are roughly 30 degrees or so apart.

Most of it is Long-wise, but there's a little variance Lat-wise, too...

Sounds about right. Thanks... Interesting... very interesting. *begins pulling up models, schematics and diagrams*

Greetin's From Maine

May yu guys are overthinkin' this whole thing. What did the health of the birds, what did a medical examination reveal. With that new outbreak of Bird Flu in Asia, this could easily be a sidebar outbreak.

Well, interestingly enough, nobody has coughed up a damn thing about the birds here in Austin. It's been quiet as a ghost. I don't like that.