Busy.

I've been busy lately, busy trying to housebreak a puppy, busy with the grown dog and busy getting the ammo loaded for this Sunday's Cowboy Action Shoot.

Ming is sick, mainly seems to be abscessed teeth that will have to come out. It wouldn't be so bad except that she fights the antibiotic tablets that we have to give her twice a day to get the swelling down so that the Vet can do the tooth (teeth?) removal. She was refusing all food and water a few days ago, now, after some of the antibiotic pills she is eating food that we have soaked in water. Still, the pills are a battle. We've wrapped them in cheese and peanut butter and soaked dog food, it doesn't matter. It is going to be fun trying to shoot this Sunday with my fingers torn off.

I am having some luck with Eddie. He is peeing on the paper and outside. Unfortunately he enjoys firing the other barrel near the paper. I keep explaining to him that I have a perfectly good brick with which to beat him. Sill, he comes bouncing in from outside and runs right to the paper and then poops alongside it.

I have managed to load up enough ammo for the Shoot this Sunday. I ave loaded up one hundred rounds with the new Big Lube Boolits, the .454 diameter 250 grain Pigeon Roost Slim bullets.I already have quite a bit of ammo loaded with the .452 diameter bullets for the handguns. This is all loaded with GOEX FFG black powder, also known as The Holy Black and the One True Powder. The .452 bullets are as accurate as anything in my revolvers but very inaccurate in my rifle. I am hoping that the .454s will cure the problem. If not I shall go back to my home cast bullets and a grease cookie along with those Remington .455 swaged lead bullets.

I also have all my all-brass shotshell cases loaded up. I finally got around to weighing the shot charge, right around an ounce and three eighths of my mad scientist mix of number six and number nine birdshot. No wonder the recoil is somewhat sporty, that is a heavy load of shot. Three drams of Black Powder behind those shot charges. I am on my last bag of the now discontinued Winchester Red Wads in those shotshells. I have most of a thousand of the Circle Fly fiber cushion wads that work beautifully when I want a super open pattern, poorly when I want the patterns that work for the game I play.

It seems to have something to do with the way the forcing cones are cut in modern shotguns as opposed to the old shotguns. Old guns work best with the fiber wads, modern ones with plastic. Although my mule ear double looks old, it has the modern forcing cones.

I also filled up the rest of the box of .45 Caliber Shot Capsules with number nine birdshot for the blowing away of snakes. I have three more empty boxes for when I manage to buy some number twelve shot. Mike Venturino, a noted authority on the arms and ammo of the last half of the Nineteenth Century, swears by number twelve shot in handgun shotshells. This 12 shot is deadly on snakes at handgun ranges, trouble is that it has so little mass that it won't hold velocity for ranges for anything else. The shot caps hold just over 157 grains of number nine shot. There is the problem, fifty rounds of birshot shells is a lifetime supply. So, what to do with the rest of the bag of shot?

I have been following the War on Terror with great interest, in Britain, Israel and Lebanon as well as here. There are many, far smarter than me commenting. I have just one question, why can we not terrorise the Muslims a little bit? Say just enough that they have to stay home to keep us from killing them? Just a thought.