A Little Of This, Some Of That

 Midway USA has a monthly flyer and you can find them on the Intertoobz.  There are a few real bargains in their monthly sales. This month they have some good practice ammo like .380 brass cased Blazer ammo for $18.75 per fifty and .38 Special American Eagle for $20.49 for fifty. Good prices for some 9mmP and .357 Mag, too. I've never made, nor have I been offered a nickle from any outfit I endorse here, I just know good service and good prices. I've been doing business with Midway since around 1988 or so.

 another mail order outfit I've done a lot of business with is Graf and Sons. I buy my black powder from them and sometimes their prices on any one thing will beat Midway.  Graf's always has a lower shipping and handling charge than Midway but their prices usually runs just a tad more.

 I shoot very little factory ammo, I have a crowded and cramped little room in this house that has my computer on one desk and my reloading gear on the other, components and such on a bunch of steel warehouse shelves we've scrounged.  I do keep a few boxes of factory ammo for the defensive revolvers we live with. On the other hand only one of my .45 (long) Colts has ever had a factory round through the tube and that was because it was picked up from our oldest boy in Arizona. By the time I got home I had dies and components for it, and then the other three never had a factory round. I load my .45 Colt ammo to three levels, depending on what I'm trying to do. I load the revolvers to the ballistics of the original 40 grains of black and a 250-255 grain bullet, meaning anywhere from about 700 feet per second to about 950 fps.  And don't scoff at those 700 fps loads. Shortly after the .45 Colt was issued to the Army back in 1873 they lightened the loads.to equal the .45 S&W round, a 230 grain bullet at around 725. This is the load that conquered the Sioux and Cheyenne and, later, the Apaches. I load these rounds in both black and smokeless to those ballistics, going up to te 900+ loads when I want to play with them. The main difference between my bullets and factory bullets is that mine have a much broader flat point than factory bullets due to the fact that my bullets are cast in a mold that is designed for both handgun and tube magazine rifles and carbines.Sometimes when I'm running about places where handguns are verbotten  I'll toss one of the Colt clones into the console. If I ever have to tag something with one of those big fat soft flat point bullets it will be well and truely tagged. I know it is popular to carry something with which you could fight off an entire platoon without reloading. Horsecrap. If a problem requires that many rounds I'd be dead anyhow.

 These loads also work in my clone of the '92 Winchester. When I get home, though, I clean the thing, adjust the sights and load it up with Hornady XTP JHP bullets over a max load of either Hodgdon's H110 or LilGun. That Brazilian clone will actually move a 300 grain bullet to the same velocity as the old Remington .45-70 300 grain JHP that used to be a big staple in deer camps all over the country in the late 19th and early 20th Century. A big fat hollowpoint at 1900 fps? That'll stop anything up to Bison. And for those critters there are heavier bullets.I don't have the molds but places like Montana Custom bullets sells the heavyweights by the hundreds. Beartooth Bullets goes all the way up to 405 grain gas checked bullets, just in case there is an unexpected Rhino infestation. The 350 grain are really more practical in the .45 Colt case. And I've read that the black bear is coming back to east Texas. I wonder could I grin down a bear like Davey Crockett did?

 I only load black powder in my shotgun rounds so all of the buckshot and slug loads in the house are factory, although I do have a five pound box of Hornady buckshot I can load in my brass shotshell hulls. Shotguns being what they are I can load black powder shotshells and get the same ballistics as smokeless loads. Plus I could hide in the smoke as I reloaded the double barrel.

 There is a twenty dollar per shipment HAZMAT fee for any powder and primers so, except for black powder it usually is more economical to buy those local, except for Black. The mess of regulations and fees for BP make it really expensive to buy local. Now if I only wanted a pound it would be one thing but what handloader has ever been satisfied with one pound of powder?

 Oh, and notice that Graf's has Schuetzen black powder at $2.00 off, only 12.99 a pound. When Linda Lou can move about safely and I go back to Cowboy Action shooting It's no trouble at all to split up a 25 pound case to where everyone gets enough powder to last awhile. Now I do know a couple shooters who can burn up a 25 pound case in a year, most of us aren't nearly wealthy enough to shoot that often. I usually end up with ten pounds at a time, either buying just that amount or splitting up a case.

 If I'm looking to buy components or ammo in person I usually end up at either Southwest Ammunition Supply in Mesquite, Texas. I used to shoot at Gibson's Outpost and buy components there but now that what shooting I do is usually at the range where my Cowboy Action club is located.  Anyhow, if one lives in the Dallas area both those places are worth a visit.

 I usually buy a brick of .22 ammo whenever I slip into Cabella's or Bass Pro Shops. The only wat to have too much .22 ammo is if the steel shelf collapses under the weight. I have two kinds of Remington, some CCI MiniMag hollowpoints, some Winchester and two kinds of Agulia. I'm out of Federal so that's on the list.The stock barrel on my little Ruger will eat anything. The match chamber on the Shilen barrel is somewhat more fussy.It likes the CCI and Remington hollowpoints, oddly the Remington match ammo has a little trouble. It likes the Winchester Power Point ammo better than the hollowpoint. I've never had a bit of trouble with any Federal so far, in either barrel. I have a family of bunnies living under my deck. When they see me they just freeze, thinking I don't see them, even when I say "Hello B'rer Rabbit!" as I walk by. They are my first batch of meals, come the apocalypse.

 We're going to our son in law's graduation ceremony on Friday. Dean is getting his MBA. His bachelor's in in mechanical engineering.  He is gonna be someone important there in the ceremony because he is giving a speech. Linda Lou disremembers  the title he's been given but they don't usually let the class clown give a speech. Otherwise I would have given a lot of them when I was younger. Of course Dean studied, I majored on coeds and beer.

 Our neighbor Patsy is home from the hospital. She had something like a 90 percent blockage in her heart so they put in something called a shunt. I dunno what that is but they had to open her up, stop her heart, put in the implement, restart her heart and, I assume, sew her up. and she's already home. She says she feels a lot better but, due to the tube down her throat she's not eating solid food yet because those tubes hurt. So when I took Trespasser Dog back to her she was eating egg drop soup from the Panda Restaurant in Wills Point. That's another place I like but they don't pay me anything. Well, actually they do. You know that Chinese BBQ chicken on a stick that most Chinese eateries have? They always give me one of them in a bag for the dogs. Because we have a Chinese Pug. See, I can be bought. The usual way to a man's heart is through his stomach or points south.  I'm so durned old that the way to MY heart is through the dog's stomach. Sigh.

 It's a Texas Formal event so I have to wear long pants.