Frustration Day

I don't know what kind of news it was, we got a letter from the surgeon who claims he can fix Linda Lou's broken leg delaying the surgery. It was scheduled for November 18th, two weeks and two days after they let her out of this one hospital, it's now going to be on the sixth of December.

Y'all pardon me for being really tired of this. I'm tired of having to drive to Dallas. I'm tired of not having my wife able to move. I won't say that I'm tired of taking care of her but I will say that it's making it hard to take care of myself. I went to the specialists at the Texas Back Institute Wednesday and got a whole slew of routines to work with the Physical Terrorists, trying to get my back to work where I'm not getting crippled with muscle spasms. No one quite understands why it will be my lower back one time, my neck another. It may be related to the arthritis, it may be related to the Parkinson's, it may be something else. All I know is that Thursday I was supposed to be in PT at two PM, so I went to bed early, two AM. I woke up at two fifteen in the afternoon. I'm plumb wore out.

So, Linda Lou will be home, with nothing stabilizing those bones in her leg, which have been broken since the end of February, from the third of November until the day before Pearl Harbor Day. I am supposed to juggle three two hour PT appointments, driving to and fro, shopping, cooking and taking care of her. I do not know where I will get the strength. Get it I will, though, because I must.

Excuse me while I go kick the dog. Hmm, which dog? How about the red dog from the neighbor's who came in with Bingo the other day and stole the Tootsie Roll Toy off the living room floor when he snuck in while I was taking my morning constitutional?

Everything isn't a total loss, I'm just a little frustrated over how long everything is taking.

In more important news, Bingo T. Pug has a new harness. It's cool enough, most of these days where I can again take him on my rounds and leave him in the car while I go into those benighted places where dogs are not allowed. So, on my latest trip to the Texas Back Institute, where I got my new PT orders (oh, boy!) Bingo T. Pug waited, we then went to PetSmart, got him a brand new red harness. He's never had a harness, just a collar and Pugs, being the kind of critter with a thick neck and small head, could slip right out of any collar that didn't threatened to choke him.

So, Bingo got to show his Momma his brand new harness. This should mean that I shall now be safe from the citified armchair "environmentalists" because, unlike them, I have harnessed the PUG POWER!

So, we are trying to muddle through. I shall have a longish blog post on the .308 Winchester coming soon, and then, perhaps a post on the two cartridges based on the .308 necked up to .338 and .35 calibers. Those two are, I believe, close enough to be in one post.

Dear Eric:

Dear Eric, I know that this is a busy time of the year but I thought I'd drop you a line. You seem to have forgotten the oath you swore to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States. If you can, take a look at that oath, Eric. The oath was not to the Democrats, nor to Barry Obama. Your job, Eric, is to enforce the laws. Politics are another department, you might recall the big stink over Bush politicizing the Justice Department.

Eric, I do not believe you understand how thin the ice is underneath your feet, nor how deep, swift and cold the water. You are blithely ignoring rampant vote fraud running up to the election, in Houston, Arizona, Washington State, and other places, too, I'm sure. Eric, our government depends on the consent of the governed. There are not enough IRS agents to go after everyone if they, like in Greece, start massively cheating on taxes. There are not enough cops, period, if Americans become scofflaws. Yet, Eric, that is what we're facing if you keep letting people steal elections. Tell me, Eric, after Al Franken blatantly stole the election up there in Minnesota, excuse me, kept "counting newly found votes", don't want that mean ol' Al threatening me, why should any American obey any law for which his vote made fifty-one?

Eric, you are depending on the fact that we Americans are a peaceable lot, and you're right. We do have our limits, though. And we;re just about there. Eric, we do not mind getting beaten in a fair and honest election. So, Eric, how about you try this novel approach? Equal enforcement of the law. No Republican will complain if you lock up all the Republicans who actually break the election laws as long as you do the same with Democrats. Or, Eric, are you an Attorney General of Cowards for not wanting to talk about those crooks trying to steal our Republic? Eric, I'm betting you are a coward.

Come on, Eric, how about it? A fair election. Is that too much to ask?

See you in November,
Peter

Dear Campbell's Chunky Soup:

Dear Campbell's Chunky Soup:

I'm writing to thank you for helping me get through this temporary bachelorhood and bout of appointments with the Physical Terrorists. Without your help I would probably starve. Your Bean With Bacon, Your Split Pea With Bacon and, most especially, your Beef With Barley have been mainstays. This is not to denigrate some of your others that I have also tried during this ordeal. The Chunky Clam Chowder with a can of drained tuna thrown in is also a mainstay, especially when I'm going to be out and about for hours, that is a meal that really sticks to a man's ribs.

I do wonder, though, why you include your Chicken and Sausage Gumbo into the Chunky Soup line. I always kind of figured that a Chunky Soup should include something called "chunks". Slices of sausage thin enough to read an insurance policy through do not fit the definition of "chunks" Plus Gumbo implies "spice". Gumbo has some heat to the taste, this is some Yankee soup. It reminds me of the grits I got for a side at breakfast once up in Oregon, the poor dears were trying but they simply had no idea of what Grits are for. Campbell's. Please send your execs on a trip to Louisiana. Not New Orleans, one of the small towns out about fifty miles out, off the main highways. Order Gumbo. Ask questions and take notes.

Above all, Campbell's execs, for a soup to be called "Chunky Soup" it must have chunks instead of blow chunks.

Best regards,
Peter

Idle Thoughts Of An Almost Retired Gunny.

I am retired from hunting, these days. After my stroke it just wouldn't be fair to the game. The only sort of competitive shooting I do anymore is Cowboy Action and I haven't done that since Linda Lou broke her leg. It's not that i don't want to go to a shoot, it's that if I had the money for gas and range fees, I'd go visit Linda Lou in the hospital. And when she was trying to recover at home, the money went to medical stuff that the insurance didn't cover like bandages.

Still, I keep up with the literature and I read the shooting websites. Then I sit around and wonder what world most gunwriters inhabit. I understand that the gun companies come out with new cartridges, not to fill any particular need, but so they can sell more guns. Take, for instance, the new super short magnums. The ponly thing any of them do is give the ballistics of an older round, in a differently shaped case. a shape of case that makes for a rifle with feeding problems, which is why many, if not most, custom riflemakers won't try to build them.

Meanwhile, in spite of all this "progress" in cartridges and rifles, a couple of years back they did a study. The rifle cartridge that had the most one shot kills on deer was the old .300 Savage. Rifles with less oomph would fail with hits from bad angles, rifles and loads more powerful kicked more, making precise shots more difficult.

The .300 Savage approached the original military load of the 150 grain .30-06 in a cartridge short enough to fit that famous old Savage 99 lever action. Like the .308, .260 Remington and the 7mm-08 it was powerful enough for anything but the big bears. Yet nobody much cares about these rounds, wanting POWER! And then they wonder why they have a splitting headache after a practice session.

Another idle thought. Why is it that people who want to go hunting spend all their practice sessions shooting off those big benches, with their rifles snugged into sandbags? How, persactly, does one carry that bench and sandbags out into the woods? Hunting season is almost here. If I were to walk behind the firing line at a busy range I might, might see one guy between the benches, in the sitting or kneeling positions, shooting. And the guys wonder why their freezers are full of storebought beef instead of venison.

I have a couple of acquaintances who are professional hunting guides and outfitters. They always cringe when a client shows up with a new looking magnum rifles. They know that the most recoil the average hunter can handle, and still shoot accurately, is the .30-06. And. really, with rifles getting lighter and lighter, that trend is not toward more powerful rifles. In my day, a normal bolt action rifle weighed 'purt near ten pounds with scope, sling and a magazine full of .30-06 rounds, which was four or five. Today a lot of rifles are a full two pounds lighter, some closer to four pounds. The lighter the rifle, the more the same round kicks, the more recoil, the quicker comes the flinch.

Speaking of rifle weight with sling, how many shooters today can get into a loop sling, quickly? How many can get into a loop sling at all? The loop sling is the single most important aid to accuracy there is in the field. A hunter who is used to shooting from sitting or kneeling with a loop sling is almost as accurate as the guy with his rifle snugged into sandbags on that big concrete bench at rifle ranges. And yet if a modern bolt action wears a sling at all it's one of those "Cobra" style things that are good only for carrying the weapon. So, as rifles get lighter, the slings get wider, modern shoulders must really be tender.

Still another idle thought. The new conventional wisdom is that a person needs a semiautomatic pistol with enough ammo in the magazine to fight the Battle of the Bulge, without reloading, plus have another magazine or two in reserve, all for civilian self defense. Seems that no one is rude enough to ask exactly what happens in a gunfight if you miss the first five or six shots that a revolver carries with that fancy semiauto. Let me be that rude guy. Seeing as how the only real reason for shooting at someone is that that someone poses a deadly threat, you can't solve it in five or six rounds, You. Are. Dead. Worse, those you were trying to defend are now at the tender mercy of the bad guy(s).

Or, what would happen to the civilian who fires the whole ten to fifteen rounds into a bad guy like they think they're in a big city police force. Can you spell prison term?

I have my own quarrel with outfitting city bluesuits with high capacity handguns, too many are not trained well enough to avoid spraying bullets all over the neighborhood, mostly missing but an unfortunate number of rounds going into the bad guy, who has not been convicted of anything, long after he's down. Big cities lack the funds, anymore, to do more than a cursory amount of training. So, when these kids in blue see a perceived threat, the first thing they do is forget about the front sight. The next thing is to start pulling the trigger until they hear a bunch of "clicks" instead of bangs. Somehow, the knowledge of only six shots beminds people to aim.

What the gunwriters and internet gurus have forgotten is that the semiauto pistol shooter needs a lot more training and constant practice than does the owner of a revolver. A revolver also can stand neglect a lot better than that auto. The military style semiauto can take abuse better than the revolver, the revolver, neglect. I have seen the old Colt 1911 dropped into sand, shaken off and fired, without missing a beat. Whereas a revolver can sit, loaded for years, until the brass shell casings have turned green, and those green shells still fired. A semi needs to be maintained.

Good News!

Just a quick post before the young sadists at the Physical Terrorist Office torture me some more:

Linda Lou is coming home!!!!11!!The target date is November the third, while I hope we are celebrating huge gains in the House, Senate and the lower races. Although I'm not sure they should be called "lower races", considering how much power a County Commissioner or Sheriff has.

Anyhow, Linda Lou comes home and then goes back in for the (hopefully) last round of surgery on the 18th. I say that this is the last round because if this next operation doesn't work, she'll then go back in, have the leg amputated below or at the knee and get a peg leg. Arr! This surgeon is quite confident and competent, though so I have confidence myself.

The bad news? I'd better clean up the house!

Bingo T. Pug, Therapy Dog.

I planned my visit to Linda Lou in the hospital so that I would get there in the late afternoon, so Bingo T. Pug would not have to sit in the hot car. Naturally, the nurse had a different plan, instead of Linda Lou coming right down in her wheelchair, they stuck another round of antibiotics into her IV line, we had to wait. And wait. And wait some more. It's not all bad news, it still looks like there is no infection from having that screw sticking out through the skin. And, since the last surgery, I can no longer say that she has a screw loose. (Which makes me wonder why she still keeps me.)

Well, anyhow, I needed a cup of coffee so I went downstairs, they have a pot of hospital coffee but I have my own brew in a thermos. Since the days when we had to be real careful not to make our morning coffee in the helmet that everyone had washed his feet in the night before, I've been picky about my coffee. Stop the presses, though. As I was getting off the elevator, there was a guy with some critter that looked like a miniature Collie. Are there Mini collies? Anyhow, I stopped him, politely, and asked if that was an official certified therapy dog. He said, no, he's just our dog, and up they went on the elevator.

I give you, my three or four faithful readers, one guess as to my next move. Up Bingo T. Pug and I went. I am not quite sure who was leading whom on that lead, either. Linda Lou was surprised, but pleased. When the IV bag of antibiotics was empty we had to wait a while because it was shift change and they were all busy talking. Eventually, though, the nurse came in to disconnect the bag and flush the line, she had nothing awful to say about Bingo T. Pug, therapy dog. This particular nurse is an Americanized daughter of Viet Namese immigrants, 40+ years ago I would have been really making my best moves. Pretty young woman.

Anyhow, although Linda Lou insisted on taking the camera, we forgot to take any pictures. Once we were clear of IV lines, we went downstairs and sat outside, I finally got my coffee.Alas, too soon, it was time to drive home.The extra fifty miles one way added to the trip between the hospital and home, as compared to the hospital closer to home, makes a huge difference. Not to mention the three visits per week to my physical terrorists, speaking of whom, for some reason the torture was worse today. There was no particular difference, it just hurt more. My Physical Terrorists could make the worst of the AlQ types sing like canaries. Ah well, I think there are supposed to be ups and downs. And I went in with a stitch in my back. Poor little me.

Anyhow, I survived today's PT and came home for an almost four hour nap, I awakened with Cochise' Apache Princess and Bingo T. Pug laying with me, as soon as I moved I had both of them wanting ear scritches. The excitement of my life continues to amaze me.

The Revinvented 7x57 Mauser, The 7mm-08 Remington

Like the .260 Remington, the 7mm-08 is simply a cartridge that matches the ballistics of some of the cartridges developed early in the smokeless powder era. The 7mm-08 Remington almost exactly matches the ballistics of the old 7x57 Mauser, the cartridge that drew a lot of American blood at Kettle Hill in the famously misnamed Charge up San Juan Hill by Teddy Roosevelt, that famous old war hero that went up right behind the widely ignored "Negro Regiments". That's another story, though.

The only real reason the 7mm-08 is better than the old 7mm Mauser is that factory loads for the old cartridge must be kept down for all those very old Mausers and Remington Rolling Blocks. This is, of course, a big deal to the factories seeing as how they cannot trust the courts to say, "you put a load, clearly marked as PlusP into that old gun? Sucks to be you."

The 7mm-08 is the .308 Winchester-7.62x51mm NATO cartridge necked down to 7mm or .284 inch. The cartridge case is six mm shorter than the 7x57 but since the original .308 case has a little less body taper than the 7mm Mauser, the case capacity is almost exactly the same. The working pressure of the 7-08 is quite a bit higher, again because of the old guns. The 7-08 runs about 10,000 copper units of pressure more than the 7mm Mauser.

The 7-08 will do everything the old Mauser did. And since people like WDM "Karamojo" Bell slew literally hundreds of tons of elephants with the old cartridge and the equally famous Eileen O'Connor, wife of that famous firearm and hunting writer, Jack O'Connor slew elk, deer, and African plains game with that cartridge, it's equally possible with the 7-08.

Today's wonder bullets have pretty much made the famous old 175 grain softpoint obsolete. While that old bullet, launched at 22-2400 feet per second will still burrow deeply into just about any critter, the lighter premium bullets, launched faster will dig just as deep. The old guns were throated for this bullet giving lighter bullets a long jump to the rifling. This gave the lighter bullets more chance to get a little cattywampus in the bore, spoiling gilt-edged accuracy. This, plus the improvements in rifles, gives the 7mm-08 a definite edge. Or course this matters mainly on paper targets. Unless the moose you see in the deep woods has the latest Guns and Ammo magazine sticking out from his pocket as he leaves the moose men's room, he'd never know the difference.

Speaking of moose, and other big critters like elk, here is a question that I have: Why is it that great big strapping Swedes can kill their version of the moose, the Alg with the old 6.5-55, which is loaded below the .260 Remington while American men need humongous magnums? The gunwriter John Barsness wants to know how come so many American men buy rifles like the 7-08 and .260 Rem for their wives and kids to hunt the same game which they hunt with .300 Magnums of one sort or another. It's thoughts like that that makes John Barsness one of my favorite gun scribes.

At any rate, the 7-08 will do everything a bigger cartridge will do, except a little closer. The only thing the big 7mm Magnums will do is shoot flatter than the 7-08, making those theoretical long range hits a little easier. Since I contend that not one hunter in a hundred has any business shooting at unwounded game past three hundred yards, this is advantage is lost, far outclassed by the simple fact that almost anyone can simply shoot a cartridge based on the .308 case better than any magnum.

We all shoot better when the recoil does not loosen our fillings and the muzzle blast doesn't leave our ears ringing for a week. There is a reason most old gunnies go around sayin' "huh, whazzat?"

I grew up when the .30-06 and cartridges based on the '06 case were the king of the hunting fields. Back then there were a lot of magnums, both factory and wildcat and most hunters ignored them. Of course back east hunters went into the woods with .30-30s, .35 Remingtons and other short ranged woods cartridges, they did well, too. Me, I stayed with the old '06through my hunting career. Had I been born a generation later it would have been one of the cartridges based on the .308. The advances in powder have made the .308 cased rounds as effective as the larger '06 cased rounds of my youth. The '06 has made some velocity gains since then but velocity will not kill critters. The advances in bullets have made the big cartridges of Elmer Keith's day obsolete. Back before premium bullets the only way to assure sufficient penetration on a big critter was to use a big, heavy bullet.

Today, though, a lighter, bonded core bullet like the Trophy Bonded Bear Claw from Federal or the new Speer Deep Curl bullets made the same way their newer handgun bullets are made with a core with the jacket electroplated on. This, BTW, deserves a seperate blog entry that I'll someday get to, probably after everyone else knows about it already.

Anyway, a 140 grain bonded bullet will penetrate just as deeply as the old 175 grain soft points do because they just don't lose so much weight as they go in. Now I would still choose a 175 Round nosed soft point if I were hunting the black woods where ranges would be measured in multiples of ten yards, rather than hundreds, not because of anything but the lower velocity would ruin less meat.

The 7mm-08 Remington will, with careful bullet selection, do for anyone hunting any critter in the United States except the great bears, the Grizzly and his cousin the Alaska Brown, along with the Polar Bear. Since my house is too small for a bear rug and I have gone out of my way to not live in their territory, I have no reason to pot one of those. It takes a lot of work to make bear meat tasty and we no longer live lives that make a diet including a lot of fat essential. I'm not mad at any bears. If I do get mad at a great bear I will have an '06 rebarrelled to .338-06 or .35 Whelan. As it is, a 7-08 or .308 is enough for black bears. Again, though, I neither live in bear country, nor am I mad at any bears.

A hunter interested in varmints can pot them with a 7-08 and the 110-115 grain bullets. These can step right out at well over3,000 fps, even from the short barreled rifles like those Model Sevens. Now it's not the round I'd choose if I were buying a dedicated varmint rifle for prairie doggin' but for the person wanting to zap the odd coyote or woodchuck, it's fine.

An Antelope hunter would be hard pressed to find a better rig than a 7-08 with a Barnes TSX 120 grain bullet at right around 3,000 fps, depending on the barrel. Speaking of barrels, you can find a 7-08 or, for that matter, a .260 or a .308, in any barrel between 16 and a half inch to 22 in hunting weight arms. And there are still, I believe, target rifles with longer barrels, 24 and 26 inches. I would suggest trying the balance on each and choose your preferred balance.

There are a lot of fine 140-150 grain bullets for those wishing to hunt deer and black bear. They move out around 2800 fps. Choose the bullet for the game. A Hornady Interlock, for instance, for open country deer, an Interbond for a bigger critter at a range that might be out at two hundred or twenty yards. For the Speer fan, a Hot Core for the far ones and a Grand Slam if they might be close, might be far. Other brands, the same thing. The important thing is that the bullet stays in one piece and mushrooms. A Barnes bullet is never a bad choice. Nor are Sierra Bullets a bad choice for more open country. For more decades than I care to think about, if I wanted to see how tight a group a rifle can shoot I would reach for those green boxes of bullets and do some careful handloading. A bullet that has got to the point of shooting just as well, these days, is the Nosler Ballistic Tip. When Nosler first came out with these bullets they were a little fragile for big game. Perfect for those rare broadside shots, they came apart too often on the difficult angles. It did not take them very long to fix that, though.

If the biggest game, a moose or elk is on the menu the top quality bullets are the best choice, even if they cost more. Some of the factory ammo with premium bullets is over two and a half bucks a shot. Y'all will excuse me for not being alarmed at this. When I was coming up we needed a whole new rifle for these big critters because no one had invented the premium bullets. After all, we can practice with the cheap stuff. I would be looking very hard at the Barnes 160, the 160 Remington Ultra Core Loc't Bonded, the 160 Speer Deep Curl, the Nosler 160 Partition or Accubond. The Woodleigh Weldcore from Austrailia is another good one.

It is only when I got into the very deep woods where I would think about the 175 grain bullets. Again, push these out at 2200-2400 fps, pretty much any critter hit will die. There is very little meat loss, in the words of that grand old man of gunning, Elmer Keith, you can eat right up to the bullet hole. There is also almost always an exit hole, those tend to bleed more so if the critter takes a little walk before piling up, there is a nice blood trail. This is important in the deep woods, light is usually poor, the game, while close, is usually moving so a blood trail is good.

About every big rifle company makes a bolt action in 7-08. Ruger, for instance, makes the Hawkeye Compact, with a 16 and a half inch barrel and the Model 77 with a 22 inch barrel. Browning has both 20 and 22 inch barrels. Remington has bolt actions from 20-24 inches. Savage has a couple of models.

There are a couple other cartridges based on the .308 case. The .243 Winchester is a fine varmint/deer cartridge although it doesn't quite have enough bullet for the bigger deer, in my opinion. The .358 Winchester is a good cartridge, too but I believe that the advances in bullet technology have rendered it obsolete. The .25 Souper was a wildcat based on the .308 that never caught on although it would be just as good as the .257 Roberts. I do not recall, off the top of my head, the name of the .270-308 wildcat that never got popular enough for anyone to care about.

The .338 Federal is the next try at a bullet bigger than .308 in the parent case. I guess it would be a little better than the .308 or 7-08 if I lived in moose or grizzly country but I don't.

The three, the .260, the 7-08 and the .308 are all nice, accurate and light recoiling. Any would be the right choice for a lower 48 hunting rifle.

Another Boring Health Post

On the Linda Lou front, she is now able to get up into her wheelchair again and is also able to go outside, weather permitting. Wednesday, after my bout with the physical terrorists, Bingo T. Pug and I will go see her. I'm not persactly sure how much she misses me but she sure does miss Bingo.

No one knows exactly why but Linda Lou is shedding weight like crazy, it's something called "water weight". Since it has been inconvenient to move and I'm not making her every wish come true on a minute to minute basis, she isn't drinking as much, meanwhile she is peeing like crazy. Sorry for the TMI there but, she's lost some thirty-five pounds since entering the hospital on Sept. 22. That is a pretty big deal. The bad news is that I think I foresee a major cake, ice cream and cookie famine when she gets home. Fortunately, she doesn't like the same kinds of pie I do. That's something.

I went for my first bout with the physical terrorists today, for the arthritis in my back. It's the same place I went for my shoulder rehab, after that repair in June, '08. The receptionists is the only person still working that location, though.

The first bout did manage to move the pain in my back from the lower region, just above my hips to between my shoulder blades and my neck. I hope this is a temporary thing. There doesn't seem to be much profit in moving the pain from my back to the neck. Perhaps the secret plan is to keep moving it up until the pain all flows out the top of my head and spatters on the ceiling.

More likely it's just that I'm using muscles that I don't normally use because it hurts. We'll see. Afterwards I took my muscle relaxant pill and died for a long nap.

Well, not directly after. First I, since I was already in Quinlan, went to Wally World. I noticed that the last time I made easy chili I used the last envelope of chili seasoning so I had to buy that, plus some diced tomatoes and tomato sauce. Since I was there I cruised (more like limped) past the rack where they put out the marked down baked goods and there was a caramel apple pie. SCORE! That's one for the good guys.Then past the meat and there they were, busy marking down stuff. I the guy was marking Porterhouse steaks from $9.98 per pound to $3.99. I'm not exactly sure why there were only a few left but I got what I thought were the two prettiest. What's that they say in South America? GOOOOAALLLL!!!11!!

Then it was home with the Armadillos. We have armadillos, BTW, if I had a real lawn they would bother me, digging for ants and suchlike. We have all kinds of critters out here, I leave them alone, mostly. I don't even bother with a hunting license these days.

Anyhow it was home for the muscle relaxant, then a long nap and then I watched Four For Texas on the Western Channel. I sure lead an exciting life. I did notice Anita Ekberg and Ursula Andress. And today Hollywood thinks that turkey necked Julia Roberts is pretty?

Anyhow, a porterhouse, baked potato and a sliced tomato later it was bedtime. What an exciting life.

The Great Primer Famine Of '08 Is Ending?

It may be a sign that The Great Ammo And Primer Shortage of '08 is finally about over but Midway USA actually has some of the cartridges that have been in very short supply in it's clearance section of their website. The prices, even at a clearance level are far above what they used to be but, still, prices on everything are high. One brand of Small Rifle Primers (the kind used in the .223/5.56 Nato) was also on clearance. It wasn't very long ago that none of those primers were for sale at all at Midway, for over a couple of years.

It's kind of amusing, too. This week's clearance includes several sorts of .380 acp ammo, along with .40 S&W, .45 acp, .38 Special, .357 and 9mmP. This latest addition of Handloader Magazine has a nice long article about how we should use the data in the article to handload .380 ammo because we just can't buy it these days. This gives an idea of the lead time in a magazine. I still contend, though, that every shooter should have some basic handloading gear and components, just in case. One can stow a Lee Loader, a thousand primers, two pounds of powder and a thousand handgun bullets into a big coffee can and two shoeboxes. A big game rifle cartridge would take more powder but then, even a full charge .30-06 will get like a hundred+ rounds per pound of powder.

There are only a few locations where a person who looks "of age" even has to show ID to buy reloading gear or components in the USA. As long as I pay cash, nobody would know I have enough powder, primers and bullets to go shooting, whenever I want, for a very long time. Assuming I had any cash. Sigh. Oh well, if will take me a while to build my stocks back up after the Great Primer Famine of '08, but rebuild I shall.

I'm sort of lucky on this rebuild process because as I have shut down on varmint and big game cartridges, I now only use two kinds of primers, plus shotgun, and even my brass shotshells use the same Large Pistol Primers that my .45s do. So, these days I can do all of my shooting with Small and Large Pistol primers and three kinds of powder, one for the full charge .357 and .45 Colt Loads, one for easy shooting loads in those, plus the .38 Special, and another kind of powder for the PlusP loads in .38. Plus the Black Powder for Cowboy Action.

Anyhow, as long as we can prevent the idiots in the Federal and State Capitals from ruining things, and there isn't another war, we will have a bit of a chance to rebuild our home stocks.

Some Days It Just Ain't Worth Gettin' Out Of Bed, Volume 327

So Linda Lou got out of bed into either her wheelchair or the bedside commode and she done sprang a leak. Hilarity ensued when the noticed a puddle of blood on the floor. Some of the hospital staff ran in clockwise circles, some in counterclockwise while a smaller group waved their arms.

The upshot is that she is now totally confined to the bed, until further notice. Meanwhile, a couple of days later, the Physician's Assistant comes in and tells Linda Lou that her latest bloodwork now shows that she is slightly anemic. Well, yeah! The iron that was in her blood was in a pool on the floor. Medics are supposed to be smart. I guess this is why the Texas concealed carry law exempts hospitals. Although I I really wanted to shoot up the hospital I'm not sure that breaking one more law would stop me. Lucky for them I'm a peaceable sort.

In other wonderful news, the 11th grandchild will not be coming in April. While it's always sad to lose a baby, Robin and Meleah have four boys already. While they, and we, were hoping that this time they get a girl, if He says that four is plenty, well, okay. The pics athe the top are some from a couple of years ago of the four they already have. There are newer ones, I just don't want to take the time to find them right now because it's time to get moving.

Today's big adventure is a visit with my Neurologist, followed by a visit with Linda Lou and then the Great Supermarket Adventure. I can remember when I had an interesting job, sometimes even exciting. Of course that excitement has much to do with the fact that I can't walk a block without my sciatica kicking up.

Oh well, time for breakfast. I'm having a Marie Callender chicken pot pie. hey, the good news about bein' a temporary bachelor is that I can eat the stuff I like, when I like. Right? Right?