1951

Here are a few photos from another trip out west of here, this one was in 1951. You can see me, I was the little short guy, my big sister, Carolyn, my Mom, Virginia and James, my Dad.

I have a bunch of slides from back then, too. Slides from around then and up to 1959, six or eight boxes, each with room for 150 slides. Each box has several to many empty slots, those are probably slides that were commandeered by relatives or ones that did not survive being stored in a garage.

One thing I am noticing, again, is how many of these old photos contain the cars we had. I have dozens of old slides with pictures of my folks in front of their cars, it seems people don't do that much anymore. I have seen photos of folks standing in front of their cars from the turn of the 20th Century to about the 1960-1970 period, then it seems to have pretty much stopped. I wonder if it is because we're so used to having cars or maybe it's that so many cars look alike these days.

At any rate, it will be a matter of months before I have all the slides turned into prints and scanned into the computer for blog fodder. I shall have to go through them, pick out the ones to turn into prints and then print a dozen or two out each payday.

Anyway, here is a small look at an American family fifty-five years ago.

Just a few pictures of this last trip. I have been calling it The Vacation From Hell, it wasn't really. The downside was simply a lack of money, we were about three thousand dollars short of the minimum needed. California has been expensive for decades, and it's not getting any better.

Then we got to Arizona and had to wait until we got our checks to make it home, meanwhile I couldn't even go shooting. We couldn't afford even the range fees and even the National Forest land was closed to casual shooting because of the wildfire danger.

Anyhow, here are some pics of the one shoot that I was able to attend, plus one shot of our grandniece. This was the shoot outside of Prescott, AZ that I wrote about. I am semi-confident that the pics of the 12 gauge will prevent any potential Deb Frisch types out there.

I really don't understand that mess at all. I know that Lefties and (some) righties can be hateful but leave the kids out of it. Actually I know of no right-types that would go so far as to imply threats to a child. When we on the right tend to disagree politically, we think our opponent is wrong. When a Lefty disagrees, they often think their opponent is evil. I'm not positive as to why, perhaps it is because for so many on the Left, politics IS their religion.

At any rate, I had some words with Goldstein awhile back, over nothing really that important but it annoyed me. So I quit going to and commenting on his blog. There were no threats against anyone's family.

Oh well, lots of smart people have commented on the Goldstein/Frisch situation, perhaps someone smart enough to understand it. I certainly don't. All I know is that if someone threatens my family I'm going hunting. 'Course if anyone further away than across the street wants to threaten my family I hope they wait until payday. I'm not sure how well I'd do hitchhiking with a couple of rifles and a shotgun. Maybe if I showed some leg.

Well, I have lots more pictures to post and not much to say, so let me close this. More in the next couple of days.

Home, Safe

We are finally home, the Vacation From Hell is over. Of course we got home and the house was an oven. The ants had got into the air conditioner's switch, again.

It was entirely too hot to mess with unpacking, except for the miniumum, toothbrushes and stuff. So, tomorrow will be unpacking everything we own, plus stuff that we borrowed, after I spread ant poison everywhere. I have tons of pictures, everything from nieces, grandchildren, holsters, elephant seals...if it is safe for work I probably have a picture. Seeing as how this trip broke the bank I will be blogging and posting about these pictures for quite a while. For Blogfather Harvey and anyone else wanting to know about NSFW pictures, well, we are sixty years old. If we have any, you don't WANT to see 'em.

Anyhow, a few days and I'll be back in harness.

We Can't Prosecute

I have seen much in the way of complaints about the Bush Administration's seeming indifference to hauling the NY Tines and the LA Times before the Courts. It's all over the right side of the blogosphere and in many columns, too.

Unfortunately, the bloggers and columnists are dead wrong. If there were one jurisdiction in America that we could haul these clowns before that was not tainted by Bush Derangement Syndrome, fine. Haul 'em up. Where is this place? Where can we go where there would not be one juror, out of the twelve, who would simply ignore the harm to America in order to get Bush.

Two out of the four airplanes of 9/11 struck New York City, yet who published this latest outrage? Where was the Millennium Bomber aimed?

I do not understand the antics of these BDS sufferers. It is not like Bush is going to be around past '09.It is not as if any of the awful things they have been screeching about since they failed to steal the '00, '02 or '04 elections have come true. The same people are still screaming before every available microphone that their dissent is being suppressed. Should not at least Susan Sarandon be in a gulag by now? Should I not have seen some new walls up on this long trip through the southwest? Or Army Wife, Toddler Mom seen some new prisons in Nebraska driving The Collective through in her Truwk? I mean somebody would notice new prisons going up, right? Would we not notice that Michael Moore or the Dixie Chunks suddenly disappearing? Would we not hear the cheering?

Meanwhile, there is an outfit killing gays. There is an outfit raping women for not wearing burkas. There is an outfit issuing death penalty fatwas to Leftist novelists. There is an outfit sawing the heads off Lefty Journalists. This outfit is not the Republican Party. It is not the CIA. It's not even me, though there is not much in this world that I would rather see than a lefty with a brass bead over his chest.

I do not see how we will get through this. Sooner or later the Islamists will get their hands on some nukes and carve a humongus hole in the middle of a few of our largest cities. The surviving Leftists will then blame us and do everything possible to keep the surviving government from responding.

It would be one thing if the Left still had some Trumans around. Is there one person in government that the country can unite around to see this war through?

We are screwed.

Rob Smith, RIP

I just cruised by Acidman's site. Rob Smith is dead. It doesn't matter why, he died too young.

My heartfelt condolences to his family and friends.

Dubya, May I Please Shoot Them Now?

By the Time Sept. 11 came along I was entirely too old to go back into uniform, even in a support role. I'm way too old and beat up to land a job in the Spook Shops or private outfits like Blackwater.

I do not know the languages, nor can I afford to go overseas and look for Osama Yomamoma or his pals on my own,

All these things are facts, I am not particularly happy about them, it's just the way things are. The active defense of my children and grandchildren is best left to others. I have taught the kids how to shoot, they all have access to effective defense weaponry and all the ammo they would ever need both for use and for practice.

That is pretty much all I can do. It isn't enough, it's just all there is. There are other people, dressed in various shades of blue, green and khaki, drawing their paychecks from cities, counties, states and the Feds all trying to do the same thing, protecting my grandkids.

Then we have those on the opposing side, not just the Islamist nutjobs who are actively trying to kill my grandkids but, even worse, Westerners who's hatred of out current administration is so deep that they are pleased to help those Islamists. The New York Times and the LA Times are prime examples.

I don't know how to get within rifle range of Osama. I do know where the NYT building is. It shouldn't be too difficult to get within 400 or so yards from the driveways and doors that Keller, Risen and Lichtblau use. At 400 yards I can pretty much be sure of a chest shot. I might even be able to get close enough to decide which eye I want the bullet to go through.

Can we please stop farting around and kill a few of these clowns? Pretty please? The lives of my grandchildren depend on doing this.

Go To LA And Turn Left

We woke up early again and got in the car and drove south, into the outskirts of LA where we picked up I210 and rode that to I10. We sang that old Beach Boys song about the Little Old Lady From Pasadena as we blew through there without slowing.

We got to Colton, CA and our stomachs were flappin' in the breeze so we stopped for Taco Bell. Colton is where they sent Morgan Earp's body for burial and Virgil Earp for recovery during the Earp/Cowboy unpleasantness in Tombstone.

We made a severe tactical error, though. The place we stopped was right 'cross the street from the High School and it was the last day o' school. The place was a madhouse of teenagers. One of the many steps backwards our society has made since I was in High School, back in the '60s, is the volume of teenaged conversations. In my day we kept our voices down for fear of the adults finding out what we were up to. No longer. That is a shame.

From Colton it was due east for the Arizona border, through the California desert. The first hour or so out of Colton we rode with the radio and CD player off, recovering from the noise of the Taco Bell. The rest of the way it was the CDs up loud to cover up the new noises from the Taco Bell. Thank the Lord for the sunroof cracked open.

Once past Colton there is not much to see, one kind of desert followed by another. There are a few square miles of irrigated land visible from the highway, mostly one sees miles and miles of miles and miles. We crossed the border and stopped for gas the last time. Next stop, Phoenix.

I got several boxes of my Moms old slides, pictures from 1955 through 1958, including a set of pictures from the coastal country that I was writing about. There is supposed to be a way to scan those into my home computer. If I can't scan the slides in I'll, eventually, have a few nickels and dimes to have prints made.

Well, that's pretty much this whole trip, so far. We shall be house sitting for the kids while they take my daughter in law's brother to Nebraska so we'll be here through about July the 4th, then home. If anything blog worthy happens, I'll write it up.

The Pacific Coast Highway And More Driving

So, Sunday Morning we were in Watsonville, just inland of the coast. We were done with California, all that remained was leaving. The only question was how. The Central Coast of California is some of the most beautiful country in the world and Linda Lou had never seen it so we decided to go south on the PCH.

The first place we stopped was Monterey. Things there have changed since I was a boy, Monterey, just south of Fort Ord was once a major military retirement area. Military folks who had done a tour there often retired there and I sure wouldn't blame them. Fort Ord is closed now, deactivated during the Clinton years and the Monterey area is way too expensive for the retired warriors. That would be okay but I do wonder how all those Leftists, who don't care about money, can afford to live there.

We drove down to Cannery Row, the area of the John Steinbeck book and fed a parking meter for a walk around. Parking was a quarter for fifteen minutes (See my comment about Leftists not caring about money). We walked about, Linda Lou, Captain Fatbob and me. Monterey did not discriminate against Black Pugs Of Doom like Santa Cruise did so we went down to the bay, he got his feet wet in the Pacific. I don't know how many dogs have seen both the Atlantic and the Pacific but Linda Lou's has. We heard, but could not see, a few Sea Lions and saw a Harbor Seal. There was no surf so Captain Fatbob did not send me ass over teakettle like he did at the Atlantic.

On the way out of Monterey we were behind an SUV with anti Dubya stickers and a nice big one about what Consertatives were conserving. Well, how about gasoline? And lead, I did not empty a gun in it, though it was tempting. It would have been difficult to hide the bodies, though. Sigh.

Done with Monterey, although we could have spent a month there, and thousands of dollars, we went back to the PCH and south, just a bit. The famous 17 mile drive is on the Monterey Peninsula so we took it. The average time for this drive is about two hours, except on a summer weekend when it is longer. Those who watch golf of the Teevee have seen the area, it is where Pebble Beach is. I last took this drive when, on formal occasions, I would wear a sailor suit with short pants. I think that was when we had a '49 or '50 Ford and it was a new car.

Well, '50 Fords are not new anymore and the 17 mile drive costs $8.75 but is worth every penny. I can't say much here, when we get home and scan the pictures into the computer I'll try to do it justice.

We then continued south on the PCH, about ten minutes south of Monterey we lost the four lane and it turned into a twisty, mountainous two lane road. The road did not quite twist enough for me to pat the taillights of the van as we drove but it was close. The PCH is a real road for motorcyclists and sport cars, not quite so much for a van with a guncart tied to the top. The PCH is a tiring drive that no one should take if in a hurry. It is not exactly the fastest way from San Francisco to LA. It is a road that everyone should take, though, at least some of it. We did not stop at the Hearst Castle as we were short on daylight and money. So we kept plugging south, past Big Sur and other attractions. Every few miles there is a Vista Point sign where one can stop, park and point at the vista, Spanish for view. Most were worth seeing. One Elephant Seals.of the last points we stopped at was a large one with a beach full of These seals are so named because of their long, hanging noses and their size, a full grown male is over two tons to five thousand pounds. This section of beach had more than a hundred, mostly snoozing in the sand. Some of the males were practice fighting, most were just laying about throwing sand upon themselves and snoozing in the sun. I'm not sure why the sand, perhaps to make it hard for flies to bite. Maybe insulation. I dunno, there are no seals in my part of Texas.

The seals were fun to watch, they'd come out of the water and galumph up the beach a little then collapse and snooze for a few. Then they'd galumph up the beach a little more and collapse again. I never figure out how many galumph/collapse cycles it took to get all the way up the beach because I'd watch one, it would collapse and start snoozing and I'd start watching another. I am using the word collapse on purpose, a seal would be working his way up and then collapse as if shot in the head. Then a few minutes later would start up again.

Shortly after that stop we drove through another small town, Cambria. Then it was time to turn inland on State Highway 46. This is another road that has turned into a stretch with yuppie vineyards alongside. This stretch of California Highway is most famous for a fatal car wreck. This is the stretch of road where James Dean, the actor, crashed his Porsche. I'm not sure exactly where he bought the farm, somewhere near Cholame where State Highway 41 crossed. I saw the sign about the James Dean Memorial Crossroads, I did not notice the memorial itself. Of course by then I was starting to get a bit tired. Not long after Cholame we were into the agricultural Central Valley again. After we hit Interstate Five we turned south and drove to Buttonwillow a little agricultural town noted for nothing but a few truck stops and motels, including the Motel Six we spent the night in. I was glad to see a bed.

Red Fridays.

I have not been doing much reading or writing lately so I don't know who is behind this E-mail I got. Seems someone wants everyone to wear red on Fridays to show support for the troops.

I am not sure that it will make any big difference but what the hey, I have several red shirts.

Safely Out Of California. Thank You, Lord.

We're back in Phoenix. California is the strangest place, a short drive from the ocean to the desert. California is peacenik headquarters and the home of much of America's defense industry.

We were going to stay a couple weeks longer but my sister and her husband are finally officially sick of California and they are getting their house and land ready to sell. So, they are fixing to start in the bedroom we were in. Anyone who would like a few acres of Sierra Nevada foothill gold country with a geodesic dome house and goats and chickens should let me know. Oh, and yes one can still pan gold out of their little creek, unfornately only tiny flakes. The big nuggets are a hundred and fifty years gone. Unless, of course, there is a still undiscovered mother lode.

We drove down to Watsonville and Santa Cruz the day before my niece's wedding, we drove kind of the long way around, State Highway 88 down through Lodi and Stockton to Interstate 5, south to State Highway 152 and then east to Watsonville. We drove through some of the finest farmland in America, the cherry harvest was just ending and the illegals, er undocumented workers were picking strawberrys. The artichokes were just about ready, too. The almonds and walnuts were ripening, the lettuce and cabbage growing, and, of course, the citrus. Of course the country is going to get mighty hungry in another couple of generations as the farmers are fast being replaced by yuppie owners of vineyards. We won't have much to eat but we'll be drunk enough not to care. It used to be the Napa and Sonoma Valleys for wine and table grapes in the Central Valley, now it is one wine tasting place after another from the foothills of the Sierras, through the Central Valley and back to the coast. At any rate we took all day on a three or four hour drive but we saw a lot of pretty country.

We got to Watsonville and checked in to a $79.00 a night Motel 6. On the coast of California no one needs to worry about me boycotting the Hilton bunch, I can't hardly afford Motel 6. We cleaned up and drove the fifteen miles or so up to Santa Cruz in plenty of time for the rehearsal. Not that we needed to be at the rehearsal but that was the only way to get to the night-before dinner, us not being familiar with the area. The nieces, all four were there, all the kids and a regiment or so of other relatives, some that I had not seen in more than thirty years.

After the dinner we then drove around the area until dark. We went to bed early and, after we got up, drove up to the beach at Santa Cruz. That is where we discovered that dogs are not particularly welcome there, we got chased off the big pier and could not go on the boardwalk. They will be sorry for disrespecting the Black Pug Of Doom.

Then the wedding. Poor Larry, the groom, had about three relatives total. The preacher made the bride's family and friends sit on both sides of the aisle for fear the church would tip over.

We then drove to the Elks Lodge, up the hill from the beach, for the reception. Nice dinner, loads of family, the usual thing. Since my niece is like forty or so, we had folks from toddlers to people in walkers but it was fun. Not much to talk about, though, my family is like any other. From the reception we drove over Highway 17 to San Jose where we met Springfield Slim and I bought some of the Big Lube Bullets. The trouble was that Linda Lou and I were both tired and the directions were on a recording on the cell phone that we could not hear very well. We went the wrong way on every turn but finally found the place. There is something serious wrong with driving around lost with $3.23 a gallon gas in the car. Then back to the motel. Things got interesting the next day but that is also the next blog entry.

Up The Hill

We got up early, like six AM and drove up the hill, almost to Prescott. It's an interesting drive, from Phoenix it's uphill all the way. It was a pretty morning and the road was full of motorcyclists, getting some sun and air. The road from Wickenberg to Prescott goes through some steep mountains and the temp was some twenty-five degrees cooler up there than in Phoenix and the rest of the Valley of the Sun. We got to the range, the feller that wrote the directions was just about exactly right, in about two hours from leaving the house.

The Cowboy Club, the High Country Cowboys shares the range with an IPSC outfit so the shooting bays are more set up for the autoloader boys than us, it works pretty well, though. This outfit runs it's shoots a little different than my home club, it has smaller posses for one thing. Still, it was close enough to what I'm used to that I was not lost. The slope was steeper and the range more spread out, I thought I was going to have a heart attack dragging my gun cart back to the car.

At the shooters meeting, before the Pledge of Allegiance, we had a moment of silence for Memorial Day. Then we broke into the posses and got started. The shoot started really well, I shot the first two stages clean, meaning no misses. I'm still slow, there is no hope for that, not after the stroke, but I am pretty accurate. The third stage, though, was my downfall. It had the first Texas Star I have ever seen, much less shot at. The Texas Star is an interesting target, a large, five pointed star. At each point is a six inch steel circle. You hit the circle, it falls off the star. Then the star starts to spin, it then slows and stops, until the next circle is shot off, the star spins some more, etc. There were more than a couple ugly words used during this stage. Worse, this wqas the firt time this club had ever used the Texas Star with only five shots to remove all five "points" There were two other targets for the second handgun. Needless to say, there went my clean match. The Texas Star is not a real common target yet, they are very expensive, for one thing. The difficulty makes them sort of unpopular, too. I have somewhat mixed emotions, myself. I think a few practice sessions and I would be able to hold my own on one. It would take a little practice before I got used to the spinning. So, three misses.

Worse, this was my first shoot wearing the new leather and I "missed the bucket". I went to put my left hand gun in the new holster and missed. A dropped empty gun is a stage disqualification so, instead of three misses, I had a complete blank. That is no way to win the Cadillac. It could have been worse, a dropped loaded gun is a match DQ. I knew to look the gun into the holster, I was trying to figure out if I could salvage a decent score.

With the exception of that dropped gun, the rest of the match went well, five clean stages. It was not easy shooting those last three and kicking myself at the same time. I did not kick myself too hard, it is a common happening, dropping a shootin' iron. Having to draw and reholster two revolvers, plus having to handle two long guns through six different stages in a one day shoot gives plenty of chances to screw the pooch.

This was my first (Cowboy Action) shoot away from home, there were a couple of differences. For one thing the Arizona air is a whole lot drier than that of northeast Texas. This makes a huge difference with black powder, there was very little smoke. I am used to big clouds, except for the smell and the BOOM! instead of the bang I wouldn't have known I was shootin' the Holy Black. There is no mistaking that smell, though. Note to those not familiar with Black Powder...the more humidity, the more smoke, if you want huge clouds, shoot in the rain.

I don't know how much the altitude affected me, I could blame droppin' the gun on that but it seems I don't really need altitude for doing something stupid. I will blame the altitude on the trouble I had dragging the guncart. I was really dragging by the end of the match.

I regret not having the right software installed on this little vacation laptop as I have a whole passel o' pictures, I really want to show my new leather. The irons came out of the holsters like they had rockets attatched. There is no fast draw connected with SASS shooting but these holsters are downright quick.

Well, we won't be leaving Phoenix until Sunday, then we will enter the People's Republic of California for a month. Be still my beating heart.

Memorial Day Weekend

It's Memorial Day weekend again. The older I get, the closer these holidays come together.
I don't have much planned this year, being far from home and all. I shall just say a prayer for those who have gone before and for those who still stand on the ramparts.

In the morning we shall drive up the hill to a cowboy action club's range near Prestcott for a shoot. I have never been to that part of Arizona before, from what the Pards say it is just over a mile in elevation and there is supposed to be some very pretty country.

A strange thing happened to me last week, Jim Simmons, aka Brazos Jack, the boss of Etowah River Leather sent me a big box. My gun leather was just a bunch of assorted gear, mostly the inexpensive massed produced stuff. I had one good holster with another on order. None particularly matched, which can be a cowboy faux pas, though depending on the "persona" it does not have to be. Well, I opened the box and it was full of crumpled up newspaper and brown paper bags. Each bag contained one item, like a gunbelt, a shotshell holder, a right hand holster, a left hand holster and a shell and empty box, all brand new. Each item is lined and border tooled. Each item matches, too. I do not have the right software in this little laptop we take on trips but I will take a lot of pictures for when we get home and give a full write up then. Until then, just imagine top quality leather, dry molded to the gun, hand sewn and tooled. Retail value? At least the cost of a new revolver.

It's a lucky thing the "good" aliases were all taken, the one I chose can be anyone. When we recover from the cost of this trip I shall have to buy some "town clothes" and dress like a successful gambler or wealthy rancher so I will match my new gunleather.

I'll let y'all know how the shoot went. Linda Lou and Sluggo, my oldest grandson are coming so we will have lots of pictures. Trouble is, it will be July sometime before I post them, unless my sister has that software in her computer.

Border Patrol

I don't know what it means but I have seen more activity from the Border Patrol on this trip though the southwest than in all my previous trips. Perhaps the additions to the personell since 9/11 is finally paying off. Or maybe Washington is actually listening...nah, that can't be right.

At any rate we have seen more patrol vehicles out than I have ever seen, plus twice I've seen Patrol Officers on overpasses watching the trains move under, looking for the wetbacks hiding on the freight cars.

I also saw a couple of BP Stations with their flags at half mast, though I have heard nothing about why.

Old Bisbee, Hippy-Dippy Headquarters

We got up early and rolled out of Tombstone toward Bisbee. The reader should understand that I had never been to Bisbee and only knew three things about the place. The first is that it was big in the copper mine biz. The second is that Bisbee was where Doc Holliday was playing poker when the Tombstone Stage was held up and Philpot killed. The third thing is that the streets of old Bisbee are canyons and are steep and narrow.

We got to old Bisbee, the name gives me the idea that there is a new Bisbee someplace near, we did not see it. The old buildings are still there, they are now mostly art galleries, antique stores and jewlers. I saw no old cowboys or miners, it was all artsy fartsy long hairs. Somehow I got the impression that the local weekly Republican club meeting is a lonely place. We drove up and down a couple of canyons, er streets, and then parked. Naturally, I forgot to get the camera out of the car but then, I usually do.

Tombstone is a shopping center disguised as an old town, mostly old west stuff. Bisbee is the same only geared toward the upscale jewelry and arts type stuff, plus a lot of antique furniture.

The nice thing about Bisbee is that it's a mile up in elevation so it was cooler than I'm used to in Arizona. Still, we were pleased enough to leave. Instead of going back through Tombstone we drove through Sierra Vista and past Fort Huachuca on the way back to the Interstate. Fort Huachuca is an old Buffalo Soldier post, it's one of the forts that defeated the Apache. It is still an active duty Army post, it is the home of Military Intelligence and certain Signal Corps units. It is a pretty good place if one wants to keep things secret. I don't think it is a good post for a single soldier, though.

Anyhow, we are safe in Phoenix, we will hang out here until around Memorial Day, then on to California.

Tombstone

We are spending the night in Tombstone, Arizona. We will drive down to Bisbee in the morning, just to see another old frontier town, then back up to Phoenix.

We had to drop by to see one of the top holstermakers in the cowboy action field, Big Ed of San Pedro Saddlery. Big Ed is making the holster for my left hand gun and he never answered my last E-mail telling him that I needed my order changed from a four and three quarter inch barrel to a five and a half inch. Turned out that his E-mail server was down for a while so it is lucky that we drove south. This time I had my rig together so we had a good chance to match colors. It is going to be an odd looking rig, though. My right hand holster is a border tooled two loop holster, it was made by the craftsmen of Old El Paso Saddlery. This will be Ed's Gunfighter Holster. This is a single loop design with a much abbreviated skirt. The two holsters won't look much alike, except they will both be leather. Well, I can live with that, few of the real old west types wore two guns and those that did seldom had matched pairs. Shootin' irons were expensive.

Anyhow, having done our business we wanted to eat dinner and look around, again. Historic Tombstone is now a place of shops and boutiques, along with a couple of nice restaurants. So we walked up and down Allen Street, past the site of that famous gunfight, we wandered in to the old Oriental Saloon, where Wyatt Earp owned the Faro tables, we went into the shop that was once the billiard Hall where Morgan Earp was murdered, stood where Virgil was shot and crippled.

The trip to Bisbee was a spur of the moment idea. Our kids in Phoenix work very early so by fooling around in Tombstone it would have been a pain for them. So we'll drive to Bisbee in the morning, spend a couple hours and then hit Phoenix just after the kids get home from work. I'll let you know what Bisbee is like. I think they still mine copper there. If there is anything worth taking pictures of I'll shoot a few.

Pictures

We called the phone company and complained, they got rid of the static and improved the connection. Maybe I can post a few pictures.

Here you see my new revolver, coupled with my old one. They are exactly alike except in finish, the new one is stainless steel, the old is blue/casehardened. Well, the old one has the Buffalo Brothers grips, too.

You can also see the new holster, the lighter one. I had put out a want to buy add on the SASS wire and the guy in charge of Etowah River Leather sent me an old prototype he had cluttering up a drawer in his shop. It was actually made for an old style Ruger Vaquero and, as such, is somewhat larger than my iron needs. The oversize holster does not hurt anything, it would slow down my draw if I was into fast draw but since I'm not, it just sits a little deeper, more well protected. As if I could draw fast from a left hand holster.

My little digital camera will not show the quality of the workmanship on this holster. It has been sitting in the bottom of a drawer, with other stuff on top. With that in mind, it has not been smushed, it is still very solid. The owner, Jim Simmons, known as Brazos Jack among us cowpokes, not only makes some very fine holsters but has patterns for holsters and gunbelts for the do it yourself crowd. These patterns are available at Hidecrafters.

Anyone interested in the actual leather, crafted by Jim should look right here at Etowah River Leather. I wish I had known about this outfit before I ordered my holster from Big Ed at San Pedro Saddlery. I don't know that Jim does better work, or worse, than Big Ed. I think when we get among the top craftsmen than the quality is more or less equal, it is just that Big Ed is very well established while Jim is still a bit smaller. When I see Big Ed in Tombstone sometime next week, I am going to see if he will craft the holster I have on order much like the one Jim has made. Then, when I collect the nickels and dimes together I can order a belt and right-hand holster from Jim and have things looking more or less alike. Or at least close enough to look like a set through smudged glasses.

My old holster, the one with the conchos and tooling is pretty, unfortunately it's leather is not as stiff and it doesn't work as slick. Too bad I wasn't born rich instead of so good looking, I could have a set of holsters that is nicely tooled, and good, thick leather, too.

Range Day, Again.

It rained all night Friday so no Cowboy Action Shoot. Too bad, I was loaded for bear. Instead I went to the range today, Tuesday, my old range day for years.
If anyone cares I skipped work Monday, oh wait, I skip work every day. Sweet retirement. I did go spend a little money, though, just to show the illegals that I care. Just a note here, I grew up in a state that borders Mexico, all my life I've had Mexican friends, still do. The operative word in the whole affair is illegal. Follow the rules, wait your turn, come in legally, welcome.

Anyhow, I was eager to get to the range, I had a new shootin' iron to check out and a new kind of bullets, plus those heavily loaded Hornaday XTP Hollowpoints to check in the rifle. We will start with them. Those few who follow this blog regularly know that I chose a clone of the '92 Winchester for my Cowboy Action rifle. Most successful competitors choose a clone on the '73 Winchester, they usually operate a little faster. Tell the truth, if the Rockefellers called me up when they ran a little short, I would have a '73 too. Trouble is, the '73s are a weak action, they can't take the loads the '92 handles with aplomb. Given the world I live in a rifle that serves two purposes is better than a pure competition rifle. This one can serve three purposes, close range light and medium big game, defense and competition.

I had two boxes of loads with the Hornadays, both near max loads. One was Hodgdons Lil Gun and the other Hodgdon's H110. I did not bring the chronograph so I can't give the velocity although both loads are said to give some 1150-1200 fps from a revolver barrel. Add some 600-800 fps for the 24 inch rifle barrel. This is an accurate load, both powders shot to the same point of impact. Had I not marked each shot from the Lil Gun loads I would have been quite happy with one ten shot group instead of two five shot groups. I had the usual trouble trying to get the elevation right with that brass bead front sight, my group was like an inch and a half wide and four inches tall. I was right, though, those big loads and that steel crescent buttplate got my attention. Fortunately, that steering wheel that removed so many of my teeth means that I had no fillings to knock out. Oh well, it isn't a benchrest load and once I got off the bench after sighting it in, it was fine. With that rifle and load anything within a hundred and fifty yards or so lives because I prefer it to. For now.

Now the fun part, the new revolver and the Big Lube Boolits. Actually I had all the revolvers, and the rifle. That new revolver isn't just a gun, it's a long distance drill until I started getting tired and shakey, anything I looked at I hit. At ten yards, a pretty common range for Cowboy Action handgun work, I had a couple five shot groups in the inch and a half range, more with four shots close and one pulled. Oh to be a thirty-five year old kid again. Sigh. Better yet, these black powder loads didn't begin to tie up the guns. Instead of a lube star on the muzzle of the guns I had a complete circle, and the fouling was wet and soft. Even on the rifle.

Bear in mind, now, that these loads had only the lube in the bullets lube groove, no grease cookie or greased wad. I did not even have a card wad under the bullet, excuse me, boolit. I was aiming for about 28 grains of BP behind the 250 grain bullet. I had my little Lee Autodisc measure set up with the double disc kit and I got it throwing 24.5 grains, close enough for this experiment, I shall go a little bigger next time. At any rate I was close to the old Cavalry load of 28 grains behind a 230 grain bullet. This was GOEX FFG powder.

Note...There are those who say that it is dangerous to throw black powder charges through a plastic powder measure. They worry about static electricity. Please understand that I am describing what I did, taking a risk I am willing to take. I am not telling you to take that risk. I am not blown up. Your mileage may vary. If you blow yourself up messing with black power, or that newfangled heathen smokeless stuff, for that matter, do not come crying to me. If you are the kind of person that runs around suing folks, don't mess with gunpowder. If you do, it's not my fault.

At any rate I put in the charge of powder and followed it up with a .7 cc scoop of dry grits, do not use cooked grits, dry grits. The dry grits are merely to take up space as most black powder loads prefer to be slightly compressed. Some loads actually prefer heavy compression. At any rate a good rule of thumb is no airspace in the cartridge. There is actually some argument about this in the BP Websites, seems some of the factories loaded ammo with airspace back in the day. Of course, they had different powder back then, too. And testing equipment that the private shooter does not have, we test our loads in our guns, right there in our hands. I'll stick with the no airspace rule.

Oddly, the Big Lube Boolits shot very poorly in the rifle do not think that was the fault of the bullet, though bought these bullets from a Cowboy Action Shooter who was quitting Black Powder. He had two batches of bullets, one batch sized at .452 and the other at .454. I was too slow to get the .454 bullets. The chamber in my rifle is pretty good sized, bigger than my revolver chambers. These loads were quite light was not enough pressure for the cases to completely obdurate the chamber, the outside of my cases were pretty black from powder smoke. If the truth were known, I bought these because the Pard was sellin' them for half price. Next month when I'm in California I will buy some of the .454-.455 bullets from Springfield Slim. Until then, I'll load up some of these .452s with more powder and see if the higher pressure seals the chamber better. Oh, and I'll load a batch of the .455 Remington bullets with a grease cookie, I know my rifle likes those. If these .452 bullets only shoot in my handguns, well, I've got handguns and they need ammo. I'll bet a nickel, cash, that the .454s will be accurate in the rifle. The group was spread all over but I looked carefully at the bullet holes, they were all nice and round with no evidence of keyholing. I had the same problem with some Meister cast bullets at .452, poor accuracy. The .454s shot well.

I doubt that I will have my loading press along on this trip so it will be sometime in July, maybe even August before I can report on the .454s in the rifle. I can say that the basic premise is good. My first wet cleaning patch looked like a coal miner's work glove, then the dry patch, the next wet patch had some gray. After four patches I left the rifle in the cleaning cradle with the bore soaking in moose milk. In the morning I'll patch that out and load it up with the hollowpoints in case the mad Mullahs try to invade Lake Tawakoni.

If you feel like coming over to the Dark Side, check out Dick Dastardly's website. He's got the stuff that will have you making smoke. He's got the bullet molds and the websites of those who cast the bullets and he's got Pearl Lube which seems to be considerable cheaper than my concoction, plus he gives out the recipe .If the .454s shoot as well in my rifle as the .452s do in my revolvers I will be buying a mold and be out of the grease cookie buisiness.

Investigate Gas Prices

Now it comes, the cries to investigate gas prices, which you may have noticed have risen.

I think it's an excellent idea, this investigation, but it will go nowhere, we shall investigate the wrong people. The very people who have stood in the way of drilling in ANWAR will be sitting on that raised dais, staring haughtily down on the very people who could have kept fuel costs low.

Had we begun drilling in ANWAR when the Bush Administration had begun, that oil would be just now hitting the gas stations. Think it might make a difference?

There has not been one new refinery built in America since the '70s, anyone notice that our population has risen since then? Mexico is about to drill in the Gulf. That is nice for the Mecicans, why are WE not drilling in the Gulf? Could it be those very politicians who are now beating up our oil companies? Castro's Cuba is going to be drilling some forty-five+ miles off the coast of Florida, where our oil companies can not drill. Why is that?

I have never had any relationship with "big oil" except as a customer but I live in Texas. I remember when our economy down here almost collapsed when oil prices fell to ten dollars a barrel. These high and mighty politicians who will be investigating the oil companies sure didn't offer any help then. Nor have they offered any help repairing those refineries damaged the last fall's hurricanes. The few oil rigs out in the Gulf that the politicians have allowed, many are still down from those hurricanes, too. Anybody notice those pompous asses from Washington getting their hands dirty repairing them?

Want to know who is responsible for higher fuel costs? Start with a list of those politicians who voted against the drilling in ANWAR. Oddly, that is the same bunch screeching that there is not enough oil. Imagine that.

Big Lube Boolits And A New Gun

Sorry for the lack of posting, it rained. If there is so much as a cloud in Oklahoma or wind in New Mexico, I lose my internet. I wrote two long post, both got eaten by the Internet Monster before I could publish them. Someday I shall learn how to write offline and post that.

It has been an expensive couple of weeks, I made the mistake of reading the SASS Wire Classified. This can get costly. I did manage to save some money, though. I bought a loading strip, that is a piece of leather with bullet loops sewn on each side, loke a two-sided cartridge belt. These are handy because of an oddity in the SASS Match Rules, once the shootin' irons are loaded we are not supposed to go anywhere but the firing line and then the unloading table. This makes it difficult to carry a box of cartridges back to the guncart. The loading strip eliminates the problem, we can put the cartridges required for that stage right there and we can hang the srip off the belt. A loading strip usually cost anywhere from $25.00 to $50.00, debending on how fancy, I got one for $13.00.

I also bought a batch of "Big Lube Boolits". A feller with the handle of Dick Dastardly up in the land of cheese and Lutefisk spent his 401K money starting a business providing supplies to black powder shooters, one facet of this business is molds for some bullets designed by BP shooters. Most people do not know that modern bullets do not do real well with black powder, they do not carry enough of the soft lube that BP requires. I have been making my home cast bullets work by putting a grease cookie under them, that is a beeswax wad, a dollop of my homemade BP lube and a fiber wad.

These bullets were designed by several people, the ones I bought by Pigeonroost Slim. This bullet is made in a Lee custom mold, it is a roundnosed bullet with the point flattened and one very wide and deep lube groove. The lube groove is pretty much the only difference between the ordinary RNFP bullet I cast and the Big Lube bullet.

If these bullets shoot as well as they look, I will buy a mold myself. These bullets cost considerably more to buy, already cast, than the usual hardcast bullets. The ordinary cast bullet is not really designed to shoot, rather it is designed to ship. They are cast of alloy that is so hard that they do not slug up to an oversized barrel at less than magnum pressures.

The Big Lube bullets, excuse me, Boolits are not bulk packed like the hardcast bullets. Instead of being thrown loose in a box, each bullet is placed nose down in a styrofoam 'plank' like in a cartridge box. It actually costs more to buy 250 Big Lubes than it does 500 of the Remington swaged lead.

The big deal on these bullets is that it is much faster to load, without having to fool with making the grease cookie. Now for full loads, I just drop a powder sharge and seat the bullet. For a lighter load I drop the powder charge, then I add a 0.7 cc scoop of dried grits and seat the bullet. This is a whole lot faster.

I have a couple of boxes loaded up, this weekend I shall see how they shoot. We have a match Saturday.

Last, but certainly not the least expensive, I found a new revolver, another Cimarron Single Action Army with a five and a half inch barrel. This one, though, is stainless steel. A Pard from Ablilene had this iron sitting in the back of his gunsafe, he wasn't shooting it. Well, he advertised it, I offered to buy it on a face to face deal and drove out to get it on Saturday.

I didn't have to go all the way to Abilene, intstead he had sent the revolver home with his son, who lives in Eastland, TX, a town some fifty-sixty miles closer to my piece of the rock. It was a nice drive, it is wildflower season. Plus, the diet rules are relaxed on long drives, everybody knows that calories don't count a hundred miles from home. So I stopped at Baker's Ribs for lunch. Mmmm! Ribs.

Well, it turned out that the owner of the gun had not told me the whole truth. Sure, he told be that it was a clone of the old Colt thumb buster and he told me that it was made of stainless steel. What he did not tell me about was the aftermarket spring kit in the gun, nor did he mention that the awful varnish had been removed from the grips. So, I now have my third .45 revolver, two five and a half inch Cimarrons and that four and three quarter inch Uberti Millenium that is officially now my back up revolver. I have my Marlin 1894 .357 for a backup for my '92 Winchester clone, the only cowboy action gun I have no backup is my mule ear double barrel shotgun. Fortunately, there isn't much of a simpler shootin' iron than an exposed hammer double.

Still Here.

I have been writing a lot, and then deleting, I just haven't had much to say. I've been somewhat depressed.

Last Saturday was another Cowboy Action Shoot, smaller than usual as there were a couple of really big shoots happening within a couple hundred miles. A lot of our better shooters were traveling to those. I did unusually poorly, I just kept getting "Procedurals" over and over for messing up the target order. A "P" is a ten second penalty, over and above the five second penalty for each miss. I had more misses than I should have, plus one of my revolvers kept seizing up. Oddly, with all those troubles, I won my Frontier Cartridge Class. I would be happier with the certificate had there been, oh I don't know, one or two others shooting black powder cartridges.

I am not sure exactly why my performance was so bad, I slept very poorly the night before, I guess that is as good a reason as any. At any rate, the revolver that was giving me trouble is back in the Gunsmith's shop. This is it's last chance, if it isn't fixed this time I am getting a new shootin' iron. My 'smith is putting a bushing on the front of the cylinder to hold it back where it belongs and is recutting the forcing cone. It seems that as I shoot the revolver the fouling builds up on the front of the cylinder and then drags against the back end of the barrel.

This is the second time this revolver has been in the shop for the same problem. Now, with smokeless powder loads it does not give any trouble, just with The Holy Black. Both my revolvers are Italian clones of the famed Colt Single Action Army, one is the Cimarron. This is the one that has never given me any trouble one that gives me the trouble is the Millennium revolver. Both revolvers are made by the Uberti outfit, the Cimarron is assembled in Fredicksburg, Texas, it seems there is much more attention to detail there. The Cimarron is some hundred and fifty bucks more expensive than the Millennium, trouble is I have spent some eighty bucks on the millennium at the Gunsmith already and now I have this new bill coming up.

On the positive front, I bought a pair of Brownells Colt Single Action Hammer Spring spacers installed them, one per gun. In the old days cowboys would put a piece of leather between the mainspring and the frame, this lightened the trigger, a lot. The trouble is that leather absorbs moisture for the air and the mainspring and frame rust, eventually the mainspring breaks. Considering that Murphy was an opimist, that mainspring would only break when a cowboy really needed his shootin' iron to go BANG. Brownells has updated the concept and is using neoprene instead of leather. Since neoprene is not hydroscopic, nothing rusts because of it.

I bought the pair of spacers for $4.97 and a Wolff Spring kit for $23.99. The plan was to take the revolver that was least improved by the spacer and put the spring kit in. After running both revolvers through a match, the new plan is to wait until something breaks and use the new spring kit for a spare when it does. Those spacers really work, and they're real cheap. I fired the whole match and I used ammo that I had loaded with PMC primers and some with Winchester primers, plus a few with Remington primers, they all went BANG. I had planned on backing the mainspring set screw out some after this match to further lighten the trigger, I am not sure I am going to bother. The triggers are both very light, now. I may just leave them be. I don't need a loud noise from breathin' on 'em.

I also had the rear sight on the millennium opened up so, I could not see any light on each side of the front sight against the black-paited targets. After opening that rear sight up a few thou, the front sight was easy to see.

Assuming that Koenig, my 'smith, is able to fix that millennium, my revolvers are done. Race ready.

I worked on my shotgun chambers some, my empty cartridge cases did not fall out. I got on the SASS Wire and asked the Pards about that, there were all kinds of recommendations, from sandpaper to toothpaste to smooth the chambers out. The least radical seemed to be putting toothpaste on a bore mop, chucking the bore mop in a drill and just polishing. I regret to say that the toothpaste trick did not work with my black pwder shells in brass cases. So, on the way home I bought some automotive rubbing compound, smeared some of that on a bore mop and ran that in the chambers. Then I fired a couple rounds out the back door and the empties fell right out. I shall see how it does in a match. If it nneds more I'll do it. Thing is, though, the first law of gunsmithing is that it is easy to remove metal, very difficult to add metal. I suspect that I will have more to do, if ony because the black powder fouling builds up so fast. I also put a Marble's 5/16 "ivory" bead on the front of my shotgun, it is a lot faster than the brass pinhead-sized bead it had.

So, my rifle is done, my shotgun is either there or almost there as is one revolver. The other one, we'll see. At any rate, within a couple more matches I will have removed all the equipment problems and if I have any more trouble at a match it will be because of the loose nut behind the buttplate.

In other news, it is one month and counting until Linda Lou and I are on our way out to the Gold Rush country of California. One of my neices is getting married. We will spend about a month out there. If anyone cares we will be mainly in Sutter Creek, that is just a little south of due east of Sacramento, about fifty miles. I am also going to be meeting a couple of Cowboy Action Shooters and hope to get a couple of matches in out there. I'm going to meet Springfield Slim, a bulletmaker and leathersmith. He is going to use my rifle as a pattern for a leather recoil pad and I am going to try a batch of the Big Lube Boolits, a cast bullet with an extra large grease groove. This is supposed to eliminate the need for a grease wad to keep the gun from tying up due to fouling. This would give more room in the case for powder if I want some T. Rex loads and for mild loads I can fill the empty space with dry grits or that fancy Puff Lon stuff. I have a can of Puff Lon, I haven't tried it yet but the folks that make it say it works fine with Black Powder.

Anyhow, I am loading a bunch of extra ammo in hopes of getting to a match or two out there.

George, RIP

Saturday started out as a beautiful day, I woke up in plenty of time to go to the cowboy action shoot. Halfway there I realized that I had forgot to take my morning pills but then I often don't take those until afternoon, anyway. I even had time to eat a little something on the way to the shoot, two of Mickey D's sausage egg and cheese biscuits. More fat than I'm supposed to have but I get more exercise at a shoot than anywhere else.

I shot another personal best match, the poor old Range Officer is still having to drag an eight day grandfather clock from stage to stage to keep my time but my accuracy is improving. I just wonder how I would have done had I remembered to take my "shakey pills", the two capsules I take to control the tremors. Those are morning meds since I don't much care if my hands shake in my sleep.

I actually won a certificate for finishing second in my class, I guess I would be real proud if there had been more shooters in my class, a third one would have been nice. I got back to town and called home, Linda Lou told me about the shooting and yelling from down the street and said that George was missing. I got home and went looking, I found him in a nearby field, unable to rise, unable to move his feet. He was still breathing, though.

I rushed back home and cleared the crap out of the back of the car and got a sheet, I rolled him on to the sheet and got him in the back of the van, I didn't quite rupture myself but it was close. While I was doing that, Linda had called our Vet, unfortunately it was too late on a Saturday and I had to take him some forty+ miles to the emergency Vet. I made that run at well over the speed limit with my emergency flashers on the whole way, not that they do much good. Maybe one driver out of ten knows to pull out of the way for somebody with the flashers going.

We got George inside and they hit him up with a shot for the pain while I filled out the paperwork, they then looked him over and cleaned him up a little. Because of George's size he needed multiple X-rays, he is too big for just one to cover his whole spinal column. The Vet, before the X-rays had to tell me that George either had a broken spine or just a severe shock to his spine. It would take X-rays at a hundred bucks a pop to find out. While everyone, including me, knew that the odds were against him, I ordered the X-rays. Then I waited. Eventually the Vet came out with the X-rays, they were a death sentence. We could see the displacement in his spine, along with the bunch of birdshot.

The Vet told me about the eight thousand dollar surgery that had a one in a thousand chance of letting George walk again. I opted for the shot.

They put George in a cardboard coffin and I brought him home. By then it was well past dark so I just left him in the car until morning. I got up early and started digging his grave. Between my back and that stroke it took me until late afternoon to dig a German Shepherd sized grave. Dig it I did, with a certain amount of rude comments from the boss about why I didn't spend the fifty dollars to have him cremated. The bottom line, though was that it would have cost more than double that to have him cremated alone and for us to get the ashes back.

I didn't want George to be cremated with a bunch of other critters and then thrown in the trash. Nobody cared about him when he was a puppy. He had about six months or so with me and then he had to lay in that field for five or six hours, with his mouth full of dirt before I found him. Most of his life he had no human contact. I did get to scratch his ears as he died and I buried him in the spot where he liked to lay in the sun. He has his favorite plush chew toy with him. My heart is a cinder.

For some reason my service is so slow today that I cannot upload any pictures of George. There are a few good ones in the archive, October and November and earlier.

Before anyone asks, yes, I know who did this. It is a long story, the person has a plausible explanation, it does not matter that it would be a lie, I'm stuck with not being allowed to fill him with birdshot, break his spine and leave him laying in mud. Damned Democrats.

Stress!

My Cardiac Doc had me busy yesterday, with an MRI and a stress test. Stress was easy as the whole thing was in Dallas, starting in the morning. Which means that I had to GET to Dallas, in the morning. With no coffee allowed. Details like no coffee allowed explains why hospitals don't allow guns.

I had my work done at Medical City, in north Dallas, there are a lot of places closer, none better. We started with the MRI, my Doc wanted a look at the clot in my aorta. He has me on this rat poison stuff, Coumadin, that is a fancy name for Warfarin. In large doses it makes a rat, or a person, bleed to death with no holes in him. The dose I take is not that strong, the hope is that the clot dissolve without the Docs having to go in with a vacuum cleaner and wire brushes or whatever they use. I am rooting for the rat poison, the carotid artery that they opened up in the hooraw after that stroke is still sore.

The MRI was the standard thing, they put me in this very skinny "bed" and slid me in to this big white sewer pipe and then had a crew of blacksmiths beat on the outside of it with humongous hammers and sound giant buzzers, somehow this gives a picture of my innards. This is the fourth or fifth time I've had that done, every other time has been my head and neck, though. The breathing instructions were different, otherwise I found no other difference. Oh, and this time, instead of earplugs they gave me headphones. The woman running the test got mad when I asked her to change the radio station, for some odd reason. It's weird, we've been going to Med City for years, this is only the second unpleasant experience I've ever had with the people there. The other one was back in the early '90s when some Intern couldn't find a vein on Linda Lou, I was looking around for a stick. I know interns have to learn, give me a Nurse who knows how to make a stick, anyhow. Let the Interns learn on each other.

The it was time for the stress test, as if I wasn't already stressed enough, just from driving into Dallas. With no coffee. In the morning. Here they put me on another skinny bed and shot me full of some kind of radioactive juice. Later that night I turned off the light in the bathroom, my pee did not glow in the dark, that was disappointing. Then they slid me in to this other kind of camera that rotated around shooting pics of my innards from a hundred different angles one was done with no giant blacksmiths with humongous hammers and buzzers.

Then we went to the treadmill and I had to run like a gazelle, trying to get my heart rate to 137. Unfortunately my sciatica kicked in and we could only get my heart rate to 105 before my left leg gave out. So, instead, we had to do a chemical stress test, they injected two giant batches of some kind of chemical in, no one told me what they were. They did give me all kinds of warnings about what the meds might do, all they did to me was make the inside of my arm cold. Well, they did something to the way the EKG worked but I know nothing about that, it's just a bunch of squiggley lines to me. The not smoking was a big deal, I was not particularly winded.

After the treadmill I was supposed to have a repeat of the series of pictures in the rotating camera, since we couldn't do the treadmill well enough I had to go eat and wait an hour. There is some kind of medical reason, though, that I was told to eat something with a lot of fat. It was to help absorb the stuff they shot in to me. So I had fried chicken, french fries and two, count them, two donuts, plus my morning coffee, six hours or so late. I am going to have to ponder on whether being allowed to eat fat is worth the delay in coffee. Ahh, the copay on a fake heart attack would probably make it not worthwhile just for donuts and fries.

Anyway, that was it, then into my car and start the drive home. I made a stop at Wally World and then, home. Speaking of Wally World, they are opening a new Wal Mart in Quinlen, the nearest town. Only ten miles to do the shopping, instead of twenty-five. Hooray!

Have We Found The Secret.?

Blogdaddy Harvey has been investigationg why my links won't work and claims to have found the secret.
A post or so back I was discussing my new rear sight on my Navy Arms '92 Winchester clone. If the link works you should see an article for the Marble's Tang Sight. If this link works it will give us a link to an article about the sight.

Hurray! It works. Oddly, I have to click on the link widget, the thing Harvey calls Kermit's head because it look's kinda like Kermit the Frog's head if one has had enough vodka, go and type the http:// behind the http:// that is already there, then after I publish the post, go back and edit out the extra http://. Otherwise the durned computer puts the addy of this website in and won't let me edit that out. Please don't ask why. What is even stranger, when I have my site's addy in the link, that I didn't want, I can hover my curser over the broken link and see it in the bottom left corner of my screen, I click on "edit html" and my site's addy doesn't show. Don't ask.

Oh well, it works. Hey, I'm for bed. I loaded some .45 Colt ammo for my '92, a box of fifty rounds of the Hornaday 250 grain XTP hollowpoint in front of a heavy load of Hodgdon's Lil Gun Powder. I also loaded a batch of that same bullet in front of a heavy load of Hodgdon's H110.These loads should clock 1300 and 1400 feet per second out of a revolver and should hit a solid 1750-1850, maybe a bit more out of the 24 inch tube in the rifle. The question is, how will my body react to that crescent shaped steel butt plate. I might just lose some fillings but I'm going to the range. I swear, the greatest invention of 20th century riflery was not the scope sight or improved metalurgy but those flat shotgun buttplates. Those skinny, curved steel crescent buttplates can flat jar you silly.

To heck with it, I am taking plenty of soft lead black powder loads, too. If the hot loads are too bothersome I'll shoot the real thing. I have plenty of BP shotshells for my mule ear double,too. If air travel is cancled in Oklahoma and Kanas tomorrow it is because of the south wind blowing my powder smoke north.

Overslept And Missed The Shoot.

I overslept this morning, I woke up about the time of the mandatory safety meeting. Since I am about an hour's drive from the shoot I said shucks, plus several other colorful expletives and comments. There is something wrong with a world that requires a retired guy to buy an alarm clock but it seems we need a new one.

I really wanted to make this shoot, too. New boots, new rear sight on my rifle, even a new stampede string on my hat. I'm tired of my hat flying downrange in the mild Texas breeze. The rule is that the Pards are allowed to shoot holes in a hat that goes downrange. Fortunately they missed. I went to Shepler's for the stampede String. I got it home and found that it too was made in China. Seems that it's damned hard to find American made cowboy gear. I haven't been to that part of the world since the late sixties. Maybe I'll bleg some to see if my multitude of readers will send me back to check out the Chinese Cowboys.

Oh well, now that I'm here, let me tell you about the trip to Arkansas. The main reason for the trip was to go to Powder, Inc. We got there just fine, I drove right past it because there is no sign but we doubled back and found it. There is no sign because the feller that runs the place runs it as a wholesale business and not a store. Oh well, we found it and I got my thirty-five pounds of FFG.

On the way there we stopped for lunch at a diner in Hugo, Oklahoma. I don't bemember the name but it was a little bitty place across the street from the Ford Dealership. Linda Lou wants to go back, the cheeseburgers were real good. There were like ten stools and no booths or tables. Still, if you ever get to Hugo, the cheesburger and fries at the Busy Bee Cafe, Linda Lou remembers the name.

We stopped in Sallisaw, Oklahoma to go to this Indian store. It was too late in the afternoon to go to Sequoyah's Home, that is the feller that came up with a written language for the Cherokee Nation. Good thing, too. A lot of the Indian languages are already lost, more are in danger of being lost. Note to the Politically Correct: I don't care if you want to call them "Native Americans". I'm native American, too, only I'm not an Indian. Anyway, don't bother me, I have a gun. Several guns. Anyhow, we didn't buy much, they had some real pretty watches but, since we hardly ever leave the house we have enough watches.

We spent the night in Fort Smith, I would like to go back and spend a couple days there. The town is the old stomping grounds of Judge Parker who was in the business of hangin' outlaws back when Oklahoma was the Indian Nation. Deputy US marshals would ride out of Fort Smith and return with the outlaws either in handcuffs or slung over their saddles and nobody much cared which. John Wayne played the role of Rooster Cogburn in two movies where he was a Deputy Marshall out of Fort Smith.

Anyhow, George the German Shepherd behaved in the motel so he gets to go to Arizona and California with us. He got bored riding in the van, though, and chewed on Linda Lou's umbrella handle. And he is eating the couch, too. I am begging for the day he reaches two years old and stops eating the whole house.

This brings us up to the trip to Powder, Inc. Jerry, the feller that runs the place, had a few acres, maybe more, just outside Clarksville, Arkansas. While he went to his house to process my Visa Card I talked with the man who started the Black Dawge Cartridge Co, who was visiting. He sold the company to Goex but still messes with loading black powder cartridges. Anyhow we talked loading BP rounds for a while. He convinced me to avoid shooting the "Big Lube" bullets and just keep on loading my ammo with a grease cookie, instead. Seems that the Big Lube bullets, with that one huge lube groove are balanced wrong and at longer ranges, tend to tumble in flight. That does not matter much for the vast majority of cowboy action shooting, the ranges are too close. There is the odd stage, though, that ends with taking shots at a hundred yard gong. Actually, let me rephrase that. I am not going to buy the mold for the Big Lube bullets before I order a couple hundred of the bullets and give them a thorough test on paper at a hundred and two hundred yards. The Feller that warned me about them was in competion with the Big Lube bullet folks, and, if he kept stock in in the new company, may still be in competition.

What is a Big Lube Bullet? It is a bullet cast with one huge lube groove, it holds about ten or so times the lube that ordinary cast bullets carry. I have been looking at buying a batch to test. What has held me back so far is that the bullet molds only come in six cavity. I use a two cavity mold, normally. My little ten pound melting furnace is fine for a two cavity mold. A six cavity takes so much metal that it won't melt the ingots fast enough to keep up. It sounds odd but I can get a faster rate of 'keeper' bullets with a two cavity mold than a six cavity. The melt gets cold, while waiting for the melt to heat up, the mold gets cold. Then I run maybe ten cycles heating the mold up to make good bullets, run about three cycles of good bullets, then I need to add more ingots and the whole process starts over. Dang! So, in addition to buying a seventy plus dollar mold, I have to buy a twenty pound furnace, too. Too much money. What I can do is spend $18.00 for 250 of the bullets. Since I am going out to my niece's wedding in June to the California branch of the family, I'll drop into San Jose and buy a batch from a feller that does that, in addition to making gunbelts and holsters. Anyhow, if the 250 shoot well I start bombarding my pal Dick Dastardly with E-mails demanding that he order two cavity molds as well as six cavity. If the other guys are right, then I just stick with my two groove Lee bullets.

Fortunately, the 35 pounds of Black Powder fit very well in the space under the floorboards of the van for the drive back. Linda lou still smokes like a defective chimney. We would STILL be on the road trying to make it home what with stopping every three miles for her to smoke. The middle row seats fit under the floorboards when folded down. Good spot to hide stuff when the seats are up.

Ooops, it's time to get off the net, I need a nap and then it's time for the NASCAR race.

Busy Week.

I've been busy last week on non-blogging stuff. I got myself a couple big heavy lead bricks from a defunct hospital, they were used to shield the X-Ray Department and were pure lead. I had to melt them down and add a little tin to make my ingots to cast bullets for my black powder loads. That done, I then had to spend hours hunched over my little electric furnace casting a bazillion bullets. The melted lead can cause fumes, and a spill ruins everything it lands on so this work is done outside, on the deck. Since it is way to hot to be cuddled up to a furnace full of melted lead six months out of the year I try to get all my casting done in the late fall to late spring.

Casting bullets is pure drudgery and this is why there are lots and lots of commercial casters out there, I use a lot of them myself, plus a ton of those swaged Remington 255 grain bullets, too. Now that we're both retired and sittin' on very skinny wallets, though, I am trying to save some cash when I can.

I got my last order of Beewax in, from a new supplier I found on the internet,
Southeast Texas Honey Co. Their filtered yellow beeswax is only $8.00 for a two pound block which is the best price I've found. So far, all I've used beeswax for is my wax wads to keep the gobs of commercial black powder lube from contaminating my powder charges. Of course, that was when I only knew of ten buck a pound beeswax. Now I am trying to use one of the big blocks to make my own lube, the simplest recipe I have found yet is a mix of beeswax and olive oil. The recipes vary, it seems that every Soot Lord, or Soot Lady, has his, or her, own. The olive oil and beewax recipes vary, too, as to the mix. Seems the hotter the weather, the less olive oil. Since I live where the summers are just a little hotter than the back gate of Hell I expect to run about 35-40% oil in the summer and maybe 50-50 during the rest of the year. The nice thing is that it ain't rocket science, if my lube is too thin I can add more wax, too thick, more oil.

In other news, my boots came in the UPS truck. I got those Durango Range Boots in tan. Actually after lookin' at them they're darker than tan and lighter than brown. I had to drive all over Hell's half acre to find the right color polish, I finally found some Justin Cognac boot cream that is perfect. I needed a new pair of walk-around, everyday boots, too so I bought a pair of Justin 'basic' ropers. These are the ones to replace the set that George, the German Shepherd puppy ate. I got them home and discovered that the new Justin Basics are made in China. It is a heck of a world when we discover that our own illegal alien Mexican labor is too expensive for the world market. Well, anyway, my next pair of everyday boots will be some other brand. Anyhow, both sets of new kickers are carefully covered in mink oil and then polished. I'm not sure when it became standard to not polish shoes or boots before first wearing them. I also don't know when the full shelves of boot and shoe polish at drugstores went. As expensive as shoes have gotten, I don't understand the lack of polish. Just a coat of polish every couple of weeks will double the life of a pair of kicks. Anyway, Linda Lou is giving me funny looks for wearing seventeen inch tall mule ear boots in my briefs. Who's briefs am I supposed to wear? I'm just tryin' to get 'em broke in before the next shoot.

We're leaving town for a short trip, tomorrow. We've never been to Fort Smith Arkansas and there is a lot of history, there. Just as important, Powder, Inc. is an hour out of Ft. Smith. I pay over $18.00 plus tax a pound for black powder, locally. Powder Inc is a supplier and charges ten bucks a pound, plus a $20.00 Hazmat fee for the shipper, a $20.00 fee for a ten pound order still makes it a lot cheaper. There is no good reason to make the drive instead of sending an E-mail except that as long as we've lived in the area we haven't seen that neck o' the woods. Plus, George has never spent a night in a motel. This trip is an experiment for later vacations. This trip is also making me popular in my home cowboy action club, I bringing back a case of 25 pounds for the other Soot Lords.

The last big deal last week was the arrival of my Marble's Tang Sight for my Navy Arms clone of the '92 Winchester. I don't know why but Midway had it for $25.00 off. The price of $99.99 is better than $125.00. Anyhow I got it on Thursday and installed it that night. I went Friday and shot the rifle off the bench. Group sized was cut in half over the semi-buckhorn factory site. My next match is March 14. I plan on shooting the rifle targets clean. With black powder. In new boots. Yee-haw.

A Cloud Of Smoke, A Storm Of Shot

It is time to visit the Coach Gun or, as the Mafiosos call it, the Lupara. Mine is a 12 gauge with the mule ear exposed hammers, the very first of the cartridge shotguns. While it only has two shots at a time, in a shotgun that is a heck of a lot of shot. One might wonder why a double barrel instead of a pump or autoloader. The key reason is that with a mule ear double the shotgun can be loaded, for years, with all springs being relaxed. Put a layer of tape, or a condom, over the muzzles and you are loaded and ready, for years or decades. The bottom line is that if two rounds of buckshot won't at least calm things down enough to reload, run away. Fast.

Because I am a traditionalist I like the all brass shells and black powder. In rifles and pistols I give up some ballistic power with the original fodder, not so with the shotgun. One gives up nothing with black in the shotgun. Nitro or Black, the nature of the shotshell means that we don't get much past supersonic velocity anyhow and the round shot does not do much past the normal shotshell ranges, no matter the propellant.

I buy the brass shotshells from Midway. They are right there on the sidebar. My wads come from Circle Fly, that is http://circlefly.com. I don't know why I can't link anything anymore, I seem to have broken something in the confuser.

The nifty thing about the all brass shotshells is that one does not need a slew of tools to load them. When I first got into them I ordered a set of hand tools from the Rocky Mountain Cartridge Company and I discovered that they don't seem to keep them in stock. So, I got my cartridge cases from Midway and my wads from Circle Fly, my shot and my one-piece plastic wads locally, I had no set of tools, yet. So, I improvised used a six inch socket extension and a 7/16 socket along with my small plastic mallet. It worked fine. Linda Lou does not need to be reminded that I simply threw that fifty dollars away. The adjustable dipper, though, is a work of art.

Let's load a few shells up and shoot somethin'. Start with an empty case, set a primer on a piece od scrap metal, or that expensive steel square from Rocky Mountain. Got your safety glasses on? Well, go get them, you want to lose an eye? I'll wait.

Good, don't come in the gun room without your glasses. Now, place the shell casing over the primer and put that socket extension in and tap it down over the primer. Start with itty-bitty taps and increase gradually, you will feet the case slide over the primer. You will get to where you can rap the primer in with only a couple-three whacks.

Now it's time for the powder. The normal powder for shotshells is FFG. I'm using Goex, it is what I can get locally. It is best to start with what we call a square load, we will use the same dipper for the powder and the shot. Three drams of black powder, by measure is right about an ounce and a quarter of shot. Because the shotgun targets in a cowboy action match are so close I have cut down a bit on my powder charges while staying at about an ounce and a quarter of shot. Start with the square load, deduct powder a bit at a time and let the patterns tell you when to quit. Generally speaking adding powder will spread a pattern while dropping a bight will tighten them up. We know we have too much powder when the patterns have holes in them.

After the powder comes the overpowder wad. This is an eleven gauge, eighth inch nitro wad. Black powder must be compressed some to work right, there are all kinds of scientific ways to compress it. Me, I put the wad down on the powder, put my socket extension back in and whack it good with the hammer. This is much faster than setting the base of the shell on the bathroom scale and pushing the wad until the scale says forty pounds. I measured the amount of compression that forty pounds gave me and that amount is three whacks with my hammer.

Now comes the rest of the wad column. I have a bazzillion half inch thick, 11 gauge fiber wads, I only use them on special occasions and with buckshot. Just for the heck of it I tried a batch of shells with the Winchester red plastic AA wads and my shotgun patterned so well I pretty much use them all the time for matches. The plastic is soft enough that the powder gases spread it out to fit the thin brass shell. With buckshot I can go either way, I prefer the half inch wads because that way there is more room for shot and powder. Once the overpowder wad is set with the right compression, the plastic or fiber wads just need to be set in, no compression needed. Just push them in until we feel them bottom out. Now for the shot, just pour the dipperful in and give the shell a shake to level it off.

Now add the overshot wad, it is a ten gauge thin card wad. Glue it in, I use Duco Cement. I tried using Elmer's, the wads came out and the shot ran all over everywhere. A lot of folks swear by Waterglass or sodium silicate. I can't get that stuff without going online and buying it by the gallon. Other folks like the hot glue guns, I thought about buying one. Then I thought about how many tubes of Duco I can buy at 97 cents each at Wally World.

I have a five pound box of number 00 buckshot so I loaded a few of those for fun, there is room for the magnum charge of twelve per shell. These rounds seem to be more effective than the Remchester low recoil buckshot loads I can buy. Note. Unless you know what your DA will do, never load your home defense guns with handloads. Fortunately mine doesn't care. My loads give me twelve blue whistlers per shell and a big cloud of smoke to hide in, too. Mainly, though, most of my black powder shotguns loads are for fun, a cloud of smoke with bright flashes of orange flame and an ounce and a quarter of birdshot, it will take down any of our knockdown targets and buy me lots of style points, too.

With birdshot and the plastic shot cup wads my gun shoots on the tight side of improved cylinder and modified pattern if I have the charge right. If I add just a. tad of extra powder, they open up to normal percentages. Using the fiber wads my patterns start with a loose IC/Mod pattern and by increasing the charge I get a cylinder/IC pattern. Of course if I increase the charge too much my patterns end up with big holes.

Ann And The Ragheads

I am not as exercised of Ann Coulter's comments at that conference as many other people seem to be.

I am totally uninterested at the reactions of those on the Left, after all I have seen what they have called Clarence Thomas and Michelle Malkin. I am not particular excited about what those of my rightwing brethren ans sisteren have to say about her, either. Ann is what she is. She is pretty well grown, grown ups don't usually change a whole lot. I don't have to vote for her, she isn't running for anything.

I do wish she hadn't used the raghead statement, not because it is wrong, but because I am not sure that the timing is right. My parents generation used the terms Japs and Nips for the Japanese, and Krauts for the Germans. They did it on purpose because they were involved in the slaughter of vast numbers of those people. My mother was involved in that slaughter just as the men in the military were, just in an indirect way. She worked for the railroad here in the States, anybody remember how the bombs and bullets got to the ports? Then thirty+ later my mother loved her Japanese American son in law. The time for killing was long over and so was the time to dehumanize our late opponents.

When we are involved in the slaughter of vast numbers of an enemy, we tend to use words that dehumanize that enemy. That is a good thing, assuming that we believe that such killing is the right thing to be doing and I believe that it was.

Are we going to have to kill vast numbers of the world's Muslims in order to survive as a civilization? Ann thinks so. I am not sure, but each day I wait for these "moderate Muslims" to shut up those chanting "Death To America!" I'm still waiting.

Are the world's Muslims making any more noise after Ann's comments than before? Now George W. Bush is still trying to keep this war on the small size, I am not sure that it is possible. I do not blame Dubya for trying, if we can get through this war killing thousands instead of millions it will be easier on our souls. By the same token, I don't blame Ann for believing we're past that point.

Make no mistake, if Dubya's attempt to keep this war small is unsuccessful we will have to dehumanize Islam. Without such dehumanisation we will lose this war.

Moose Milk And Other Oddities.

I tried some new cleaning methods that I have read about on the Cowboy Action Shooting websites for cleaning my shootin' irons after shooting thirty rounds each in the revolvers and fifty-seven in the rifle, plus twenty-three 12 gauge blackpowder shotshells. To say that the shootin' irons were dirty would be an understatement. The last stage of the match my revolver's cylinders were getting difficult to turn. Had this been a big match with ten or more stages I would have had to pull my cylinder base pins and wipe the pins and front of the cylinders down with moose milk.

My shotgun, of course, is easy. It being a double barrel I just take the barrels off and it's an easy job. Especially by using Windex with vinegar. There are sever different formulations of Windex, try the kind with vinegar. My shotgun is rather difficult to clean after using black powder because I cheat and use modern plastic shotcup wads, the loads pattern better. At any rate the combination of the plastic and black powder residues react poorly together. The old fashioned soap and water scrub took a long time, the Windex took three patches in each barrel two wet and one dry, plus a patch to oil each barrel. When the patch is pushed out a huge amount of the plastic and powder residue comes sliding out like a discarded snake skin. Everything else was done with moose milk.

Moose milk is something that I am just now learning anything about. There is a compound from Germany called Ballistol. It is advertised as a multi-purpose sportsman's oil. It is billed to lubricate, penetrate, cleans, protects and preserve firearms, leather, knives, wood, marine, camping and fishing equipment. This Ballistol is mixed with water to clean black powder. The can says it should be a fifty-fifty mix with a note that we may increase the water. In looking at the websites the most common ratio seems to be seven to one with the seven being water. The oil does not dissolve in the water, it emulsifies into a white liquid.

To clean my revolvers I sent some very wet patches through the bore and cylinder chambers, then started scrubbing the exteriors with a toothbrush wet with the seven to one moose milk. By the time I had finished the exterior the insides of the bores and cylinders were ready, that took a dry patch through each chamber and the bore. Then the irons went into a two hundred degree oven while I did my Model '92 clone. This was a little harder as I didn't feel like taking the rifle apart, it is not as simple as a Marlin. So it took five wet patches and six dry. One of the beautiful things about this moose milk stuff is that when the water evaporates the oil is left in a very thin coat, the iron is cleaned and oiled at the same time.

When I was a boy, foolin' with Black Powder, cleaning the irons was a long and complicated affair. We'd scrub the irons with boiling water and soap, oil them up and then repeat the operation two more times a day apart.

Assuming that we pick the right bullet alloy and lubricant there is seldom any barrel leading with black powder. With this moose milk, there is no trouble cleaning the powder residue and the shootin' iron is already oiled.

Ballistol is not found in every sporting good store, if you can not find it locally my pals at Midway stock it.

Update: 2/15/06 Those who would like to buy some of this Ballistoil and can't find it locally should look on my left sidebar and click Midway USA. They will be happy to sell it to you.

Update:2/17/06 It just occurred to me that some folks still shoot that corrosive foreign military ammo. I don't bother, seein' as how I make my own, but those who do can use a more diluted moose milk to clean the rust causing salts from their bores. The Ballistoil people say to run one part Ballistoil to ten parts water. Truth be told, the water is what makes the difference with corrosive ammo.
Those who aren't sure if the primers are corrosive or not should run some moose milk, or plain water through the barrel, just in case. Water is cheap. The main advantage of the moose milk over plain water is that when the water dries, the oil remains.

The Best Shoot Ever.

Had our twice-monthly Cowboy Action Shoot today. I did better than Dick Cheney, I did not pepper anyone with birdshot, nor with 255 grain soft lead bullets, either. Dick had a Bad Day. It's always bad when one pops a hunting buddy although these things do happen. Worse was his choice of hunting partners. Poor Dick, had to shoot a lawyer. That will cost him. Ah, maybe not. Seems that those guys don't hunt together enough where they all know what each other are doin'.

Our shoot wasn't quite so exciting, the down side was everyone freezing their hineys off. We mostly buy clothes for the ten months of warm to beastly hot weather we get down here, then I get up and it's below freezing with a strong wind. It was EIGHTY DEGREES last week but the morning of the shoot it was below freezing. I went anyway, the last shoot got rained out. The range we shoot at is on that slick black gumbo soil, once it rains trucks sink to their floorpans.

The very first thing I managed to do at the range was to break my butt. Scroll down a couple of posts and see the (fake) ivory grips I put on one of my revolvers. While I was getting my gunbelt on, and my gunbelt suspenders on, I broke my new gunbutt. It is not a tragedy, I bumped it and the glue broke. These grips have to be shaped to fit, then glued together making the three pieces into a one piece grip. I shall stick it back on with different glue. The good news is that I still had the old walnut grips in my range box, unscewed the three screws holding the grip frame on and switched out. Rule number one of competition is that when trying something new, take the old with you.

This beminds me, I must put stampede strings on my hats. I almost put a charge of birdshot through my hat when it blew off and headed downrange. Then I remembered an old Western Movie I saw, I believe it was Glen Ford that tied his hat on with his bandana, so I tried that, the ends blew in my eyes while I was tryin' to shoot. Maybe I'll take on the persona of a French gunfighter and get me a beret. Ah, maybe better a coonskin cap, are we still mad at the French? I know that I'm not real mad at Tennessee. I just have to hold on to Captain Fatbob, Linda Lou's Black Pug of Doom, when we blow through there so he doesn't get blended.

Anyway, once I gave up on the hat, things improved. Well, somewhat. I hadn't done any practice shooting in my new gloves, I just didn't feel comfortable tryin' to handle the irons with two gloves on so I kept the right one off. Even wearin' one glove made it hard to load the irons. Mainly the rifle, the rounds pop right out of the loading gate if I don't watch it.

Today's match was a six stage affair. The way it was set up today was a hundred and seventeen rounds of pistol and rifle ammo and a minimum of twenty-two rounds of shotgun ammo. Handgun and rifle targets are scored as hits or misses, shotgun targets are knockdown targets and we shoot as many shots as we must until they go down. I only had to pop two shotgun targets a second time. The best news is that I managed the whole match without a single procedural penalty for screwing up the order in which we engaged the targets. I don't know if every newcomer gets procedurals as he (or she) learns the game or if I am still having a little trouble from the stroke. Anyhow, no procedural penalties and only three missed targets, two of those were when I was fighting with my hat in the hurricane. I've never had a match with only three misses. Not that I have had all that many matches. This was my forth, if I counted right.

Anyhow, I won my class today. It was easy, I was the only guy shootin' Black Powder Cartridges. That is a class called frontier cartridge. So I came in first. I seem to be one of the few warthogs out there, too. For the uninitiated, a warthog is someone who shoots cartridges with a first digit of 4 and full charge loads. Of course I am also a soot burner in that I shoot the Holy Black instead of that newfangled heathen smokeless. I do believe that makes me a soot hog. Most everybody else shoots light loads in small cartridges. There are a lot of people shooting .38s with 125 grain, or lighter, bullets at low velocity. Some time back they had a rule in cowboy action with a minimum velocity of 650 fps, then they quit enforcing that rule. Some of the Pards run such light loads that we can actually see the bullets in the air. Then a soot hog hits the firing line. Everyone has got used to the pop pop pop and all of a sudden it's boom boom boom! Of course since the game puts a premium on spped so we warthogs will never win the International Championship at the End Of Trail Shoot but that is okay, I couldn't afford the range fee to even attend that shoot. I swear takin' up long legged redheads would be just as cheap a hobby as this sport. By the time I finish loadin my next match worth of ammo I will have over a half pound of powder loaded behind a lot more lead. Maybe I should have bought me some .32-20s instead of these pumpkin rollers. Too late now. I'm stuck with being a warthog.

The War Over The Danish Cartoons.

Am I the only person that wishes Western governments would answer these screaming mobs of the violent yahoos of Islam with a bit of the same action? A modest proposal, how about we, of the West, pick a series of numbers, between one and ten. We keep those numbers secret and just quietly count down the number of riots, when we get to that secret number, send the Air Force. See how these clowns like the answer of Death From America, (or Denmark) in reply to their chants of Death To America.

A load of cluster bombs from a half dozen FA-18s would be a good start. Those sites too far away can be visited by B-52s or B-2s, depending on the state of the anti-air in the vicinity. I would be very interested to find out just how many of these clowns would be demonstrating and burning embassies if they knew that the next one might bring a bunch of loud noises.

The biggest mistake we ever made was to quit making napalm.