Merry Christmas

I shall be off the 'net for the next few days as I spend some time with my family.

If you haven't seen it yet, check out Donald Sensing's One Hand Clapping,for a story on the next of kin notifications, be sure to click the links. Have some Kleenex handy. While we celebrate Christmas or other holidays, how about an extra prayer for those standing on the walls of civilization? Some are on the other side of the world, others will be pushing a cruiser up and down the streets and roads here in the States. And of course, an extra thanks to those who are horrifying the mainstream media by poking around with Geiger counters seeing that our major cities don't become mushroom clouds. Without warrants, at that. Forgive me, New York Times, for not peeing myself.

Another Meme. Five Random Facts

Home, thank the Lord. I have much to write about over the next couple of weeks.

Venomous Kate tagged me with yet another meme. Remind me to just shoot wildly out the windows the next time I drive through the KC area.

Five random facts about me...

My right leg is shorter than my left, following a bad break in 1967. I only limp when I am very tired, though. I have a large scar on that leg that breaks down when it is injured and it takes a month or more to heal. when it is broken down the area looks like strawberry jam.

I was in my late thirties before pieces of metal and Viet dirt stopped leaking out of nasty zits that appeared on my back and shoulders.

My speech and memory are still funky from that stroke in August but my Docs are bragging about how well I have recovered. I hate to think of what it would be like if they were not bragging. On the plus side I haven't smoked at all since I got out of the car to go into the Emergency Room.

Cleaning up my English on the Blog has helped clean up my conversational English. I still know the words, I simply use them somewhat less. Nowadays I mostly only curse at Democrats and drivers.

I usually have at least three books I am reading, one gun book, one history and one fiction. Right now I am reading Freedom Road, a novel about the black truck drivers of the Red Ball Express in the European Theatre in WW2, The Hell With Honor, a history of when Georgie Custer ran out of luck at the Little Big Horn, and Charly Gullett's book on Cowboy Action Shooting. I am also re-reading Dick Lee's Modern Reloading.

Udate: 1/7/06 I just now finished this and posted it.

Shootout at Bloody Basin

I took my oldest grandson and a friend of his shooting Tuesday. I am sure there are closer places but we drove out into the hills to a chunk of National Forest called Bloody Basin. I have spotted no one who knows where that name came from but it is a pretty fair spot for shooting.

There are enough hills for safe bullet impact, many points close to the roads. The boys mostly shot .22 rifles, my little Ruger 10/22 and the boy's Mossberg. They did try something a little hairyer, my .45s and two shots each from the 12 gauge. Oddly the friend of my grandson, who weighs a whopping 92 pounds, was the first to jump on the heavier recoiling shootin' irons, while my over six foot grandson held back. Once we get back home I will a have pictures.

In other news, my sister is flying out from the Gold Rush country and will stay a week or so with my niece in Casa Grande. We will be going to Tombstone and, perhaps, a few other places. We are seriously considering a drive up to Sedona. This is a hippy-dippy headquarters but is supposed to be a pretty drive. We are also considering a drive up to Flagstaff to see that white stuff that falls from the sky on our Yankee friends. I am not quite sure what that stuff is called, shoe, or sew or something. Harvey knows what it is.

Anyhow, all is well, I am just a tad busy. I shall be back to what I allege is normal after the first week in January.

Interesting Weekend

A very interesting weekend in politics. We had the Senate kill the Patriot Act and the New York Crimes, er Times, inform the world about the Evil Bush spying on Americans. What Americans? Those Americans communicating with known Al Q types.

Now I am no expert on the ways of espionage and counter espionage but what I belive is, or was, going on was when our guys and gals in the security business caught one of the Al Q types they would pass the cell phones and computers over to the NSA. President Bush, or his minions, would okay the NSA monitor those numbers and E-mail addys until the normal procedures of going to the FISA court caught up. It is my understanding that it can take up to SIX MONTHS to get a warrant to spy on communications. That is not real useful when we have a matter of only a matter of hours before the whole AlQ gang know that we have one of their gang in the bag. At that point everyone quits calling those numbers and writing those addys.

Wasn't the New York Crimes one of the media outlets moaning and groaning that the Bush Regime did not connect the dots prior to 9/11/01? One must also wonder about who, among the congresscritters crying tears the size of horse turds about Bush spying on 'Amercans' the last four years or so were among thosed briefed on the program.

I am not surprised that Dubya seemed rather unhappy during his speech last night.

What amazes me about all this is how the Left keeps screeching about how we on the Right have all these secret gulags spread all over. Trouble is, no Leftists ever end up them.

Caught A Meme

Phoenix

Machelle tagged me with this here meme about odd habits. I have none, of course. I am perfectly normal, it's all of you wierd folks that are worrisome. I do have a couple though that are different...

I do not drink liquids while I eat. I dunno why, I just don't.

I may have been loading the same handload for forty years or so, still I look it up before proceeding, even something like 3.0 grains of Bullseye behind a 158 grain lead bullet in .38 Special.

I have to take my glasses off to blow my nose. Linda Lou thinks that's strange but she wears those itty bitty glasses.

We only really fight when we go on long trips, Linda Lou and I, yet we go anyway. The fighting is a result of my increasing deafness, it makes it difficult to hear the directions. Sigh.

I never go anywhere without too much ammunition.

Since I am the last person in the universe to complete this I shall not try to pass it on. Well, that and the fact that I just don't like these things.

Fredericksburg, Texas

I spent yesterday up in the Texas hill country, specifically in Fredericksburg. One of Texas's German communities this town was Union during the War of Yankee Aggression, several of the townsmen were hanged over it.

That unpleasantness is long over, Fredericksburg is now a tourist destination. There were two places I wanted to see, the Admiral Nimitz Museum of the War in the Pacific and Texas Jack's. We hit Texas Jack's first, this is a store that is fairly well known among folks in cowboy action shooting. I have done a bit of business with them online and shall do so again. They are also the showroom of Cimarron Arms. I was mainly interested in boots, though. Anyhow, if interested they are http://www.texasjacks.com/

I could have easily spent the entire budget for this trip right there, instead I just bought a stick horse for the two-year old grandson and went about my business. The Nimitz Museum is quite a place, replete with uniforms, medals, guns and stuff and lots of maps.

Bentley the black Pug was the hit of several places, as usual.

Pictures

Okay, here are some pictures of the new rifle and a bonus picture of George's graduation from beginner's obedience school.

A look at the rifle in the gun cart shows just how much longer it is than the Marlin Carbine or the 20 inch barreled coach gun.

George could not keep his graduation cap on too well, doesn't matter though as he didn't learn much, either, but the socialization part worked.

Anyhow, this is my last post until San Antonio, unless something goes seriously wrong, then it is time to see Arizona. Y'all play nice. If anyone insists of trying a comment party while we are on the road, okay. Just bear in mind that my grandkids see this blog and make the puddin' rassellin' word pictures somewhat opaque, please. I hid the keys to the fabled Tequila Mines of Cuervo under the back door doormat, try not to overwork my poor Mexican miners or they, too, whill be sneakin' cross the border.

On the road, again....

BOOM! And A Giant Cloud Of Smoke.

I've been neglecting this blog, does not look it shall get much better until January. Between getting ready to spend December in Arizona, and learning cowboy action shooting I haven't had much time to even look at blogs, much less write in this one.

Saturday marked my third match and the first one with all black powder cartridges. Also the first match with my new rifle, a clone of the Winchester Model '92 in .45 Colt. I'll post a pic or two before the end of the week. Meanwhile, here in a word picture, it's the rifle version, meaning it has the 24 inch octagon barrel rather than the round barrel of the carbine or the short octagon tube of the short rifle. It has the full length magazine holding thirteen rounds, with one in the chamber it is one of those damn' yankee rifles that ye load on Sunday and shoot all week. And it is stainless steel, not period correct, of course, but then they didn't load .45 Colt into rifles or carbines back then, either. Since I am shooting black powder, with the propensity toward corrosion that it has, I'll just pretend it's nickel plated.

At any rate, Saturday's match got rained out, I only got to shoot one stage out of six. By the time it was my turn to shoot the rain was comin' down like a brown cow peein' on a flat rock. That was impressive, though, the more moisture in the air, the bigger the cloud of smoke. I didn't notice but the other folks said that the shotgun was shooting flame and sparks out some five feet. All I saw was big clouds of smoke, though. The recoil of those BP 12 Gauge loads pushes the muzzles up to where I don't see the shot strike until I haul the muzzles out of the sky.

We finished the match the next day, in a thirty plus mile an hour wind. The clouds of smoke aren't nearly so blinding in wind like that. The full charge black loads are still impressive, though. It seems that most folks in cowboy shoot very light loads in .38 or even .32 for the speed. It is much faster to shoot when one does not have to contend with recoil. There is a smaller subset of shooters who fire cartridges with numbers beginning in .40 or more. These folks are called 'warthogs'. And there is another smaller subset called Soot Lords, who shoot the original powder, black, or one of the replicas like Pyrodex or Triple Seven. I guess I'm workin' on becomin' a Soot Hog.

Well, I have to take Linda Lou's car to the shop, then her retirement party is tonight. Tomorrow night is Georges graduation from beginning obedience school and then we're leaving Friday for San Antonio. We'll shall spend a few days there and then off to Arizona for the rest of the year. I'll write some from the road, for now, though, I shall be lucky to post a few pictures. Anong with everything else I must load up every .38 and .357 case in the house so that Andy and his wife have sumpin to shoot. Plus a couple hundred more .45 and 12 gauge black powder loads so that I can go to a match or so out there. It is fast to load smokeless loads, the black loads are slow because I have yet to buy a powder measure that works with black. It is too explosive to use in a standard measure so I have to dip it out and weigh each charge. Then the grease cookies are a hand proposition, too. I can load a hundred smokeless in the time it takes to load ten BP.

Gunbelt Suspenders And Guncarts.

I forgot my camera yesterday so we snapped a few pictures when I got home from the cowboy action match. I almost had a top ten, until the eleventh person showed up. It was a smaller crowd, about thirty-five people.


My gunbelt suspenders worked. exactly as I'd hoped. Of course if I didn't have that giant gut pushing everything down it would be a different story.

Here is a picture of my guncart with my shotgun and my Marlin .357 Mag Carbine.

For some reason George has decided we need a giant hole in the yard, near the front steps. I swear I'm gonna break my leg stepping in that hole. Had to get a dog, couldn't get a nice guppy.

Anyhow my second cowboy match went a lot smoother, only two embarrassing mistakes. Somehow I loaded one of my revolvers with four, rather than five rounds on one stage and I forgot the sequence I was supposed to be shooting the rifle targets on another stage. I still have a lot to learn in this sport. The hard part is that each stage, or set of targets , has a different way that the targets are engaged.

Big Surprise.

I went out and voted yesterday, just like I had intended. I don't know how I got it into my head that the voting for the State Primaries was yesterday, that is in the Spring. By the way, the woman running against Perry for Governor is named Strahorn, not quite sure how she spells it. She was a Rylander a marriage or so back. I don't know who is advising her, the election is months away, each of her campaign commercials is more annoying than the last one. We've had months of her commercials already, each tells us that she is one tough granmaw and some alleged miscue by Perry, the Gov we have now. I could give a rat's patootie how tough a granmaw she is, it's been some decades since the Governor of a State has actually had to whup somebody.

Had some minor errands to run afterwards and during them I dropped into Koenig's Gunshop in Terrel to check on the progress on the action job of my new revolver. It was promised to be ready this coming Friday and I was going to jog their memory a little in hopes of having the job done in time to go to the Cowboy Action Shoot this coming Sunday.

Imagine my amazement when they told me that my shootin' iron was already finished. Even more amazing is that the job came through at the quoted cost! Now you non-gunnies or new gunnies out there might be going ho-hum over this, let me put this into perspective. A gunsmith is very much like an auto mechanic, no job ever happens on time or on budget, period. It's just an automatic assumption to add at least half of the quoted price and a week or more to the time period. I had actually no expectation to go the this Sunday's shoot unless I borrowed the second gun. I was only really hoping to make the shoot on the last Saturday of the month.

The creep is out of the trigger and the hammer is nice and smooth coming to full cock. He swears that he did nothing to the weight of the trigger pull, it sure does FEEL lighter.

In other good news my two pair of suspenders came in the mail. I ran some leather thongs through the buttonholes on one pair and now I have suspenders for my gunbelt. Now, Linda Lou offered to give me a few inches of her surplus hips and butt, trouble is, I don't think we can afford a whole wardrobe of new trousers, though. So, I'll just see how these work, if they work well I'll take the gunbelt to the Mesquite Saddle and Shoe Repair Shop and have the Chinaman sew some suspender buttons on the rig. I'm ordering some old west type trousers tomorrow and a duster coat, too. I want to order the coat before the sale is over.

I also have to see if my new guncart will fit into the back of my car, it fits easily into the back of Linda Lou's minivan, we'll see how it fits into the back of my PT Cruiser.

If anyone cares, it's Linda Lou and my anniversary tomorrow. Yes, we got married on the birthday of the US Marine Corps, she wanted an anniversary that I couldn't forget. Pray for war.

Not Much Going On

Not a heckuva lot going on right now, mostly just waiting for Linda Lou's last day at the Postal Service so we can start that loooong vacation. Tomorrow is primary election day down here, we'll be votin' on the Governor, I'm voting for Rick Perry. Carol Keating Rylander might have got my vote but her radio commercials have been so annoying.

The big deal is the marriage amendment in the State Constitution. I'm voting for it. Oddly, if there was a state constitutional amendment being voted on to allow some form of civil union, I'd most likely vote for that, too. What I don't want is some bunch of judges deciding for me based on some odd emanation of a penumbra in the constitution that nobody has seen in all these years. It's kind of like the sodomy statutes. When the Constitution was ratified there were still jurisdictions that executed gays, none of the framers said anything. Then a bit over two hundred years later, it's a right, there it is! Right there in the Constitution! Actually, the Constitution is written in fairly simple English, I'm rather tired of having some Judge having to interpret it for me.

My new revolver is at the gunsmith, having an action job. My other Single Action Army is in pieces on this very desk, getting the chambers of the cylinder polished. This is one of those deals that cost a bunch of money, for no good reason. All one has to do is chuck a cleaning brush into the electric drill, put a cleaning patch over the brush and put a dollop of Flitz metal polish on the patch. I also must do this on the double barrel 12 gauge so the cases fall free there, too. Actually, there is a good reason this operation costs money, when we hire a gunsmith we hire his whole shop for as long as that operation takes. It costs almost nothing to polish the chambers myself. Once that is done the empties just fall out, without using the ejector rod.

I've loaded some two hundred rounds of light .38 loads with a different bullet, a 158 grain round nosed flat point. Hopefully that will take care of my problems with my carbine. The semiwadcutters gave a lot of trouble feeding that last match.

The .45 loads are going to be the light Tite Group loads. I'll go back to the black powder once I'm a little more used to the course of fire.

I'm going to shoot factory shotshell loads my next couple of matches, I have a batch of black powder loads in the old-time brass cases, I'm gong to carry them around in my new guncart and see if this new glue holds the overshot wads in place. If it does, I'll try them, if not I'll figure something else out What I'm not going to do is stand there at the firing point looking at the birdshot running out the end of my barrels anymore.

With a little bit of luck I'll have everything together, with a little extra ammo, to carry out to Arizona in December. There are some clubs out there with some awfully good shooters, if I make it to some of those shoots I should be able to learn a lot.

Well, Linda Lou is too lazy to cook tonight, she wants a Sonic burger. So, off I go..

Cowboy Action Shoot

I went to my first ever Cowboy Action Shooting Match yesterday.
I've no idea why these pictures are below the text.

At any rate, I've a lengthy set of lessons learned, number one is to try to find some suspenders for my gunbelt. Since I have no hips or butt, it's difficult to keep a belt with two revolvers, thirty-five rounds of .45 ammo and six rounds of twelve gauge from pulling my trousers off.

Another lesson is that I need to redo the kind of glue that holds the top wad in my brass shotshells. There isn't much fun in shooting at a target when all the birdshot has run down the barrel and all over the floor. I lost the shot of ten of my shotshells, fortunately I caught some of those before I tried to shoot 'em. Fortunately, I wasn't quite sure about those shotshells so I had a box of factory rounds along. Unfortunately, I didn't think to try them until the last stage. Oh, well.

I also had no round nosed bullets for my little .357 Marlin Carbine. it's primary use is as a house defense gun and I'd neglected to buy some lead round nosed flat points. That little carbine does not feed the lead semi-wadcutter bullets at all well.

My old .45 shot just fine, the new one needs a little action job, the trigger pull is awful and it has a hich in the cocking.

The important thing, though is that I had no safety violations, I did not shoot myself or anyone else. I can build on that.

Anyone interested can see the smoke from the black powder in my loads. It was a beautiful day with the breeze directly behind so the smoke driffed free.

I do beleve that I'll shoot my next few matches with smokeless powder loads and do a little practice with black powder, until I'm used to the drill.

Doctor Visits And Gun Shops, An Expensive Day.

Fun days yesterday and today. I started the day this that next visit with Lucy, my young and quite pretty family practice Doc, actually a physician's Assistant. Note to self, try nt to schedule anymore ( fasting) bloodwork visits for one fifteen in the afternoon. Lucy confirms what everyone but me things is my quick recovery for this stroke and how well my speech is coming back. So I guess it's just me that notices that I can talk for sour owlsh, um sour apples anymore well, at least this doctor visit I got to keep my trousers up. I got all my mountain of prescriptions redone and the blood drawn and we were out the door. Time for something to eat and shopping for a new revolvers. We don't often eat at Taco Bueno anymore since doing so seems to annoy the medics but there was one right near, fast and cheap......

First stop was Academy Sports and Outdoors, just because it was close, they had nothing I was shopping for, in and out, away in less than five minutes.

Next stop was B and S Gunshop, they had a few that looked interesting including one of the new Taurus Revolvers for $373.00. I filed that one away in my head for a closer look if the one at Cabella's wasn't acceptable. The iron was a five and one half inch barrel, matching my other revolver and while not quite as pretty was a nice looking piece. Still, the $289 price of the one at Cabella's was calling.

The next stop was closed on Mondays, so off we went through North Dallas on the LBJ Freeway. This road is well known for it's constant state of being under repair and a rush hour that lasts about 22 hours per day. We've got kinfolk scattered around Fort Worth, we'd go see them once in a while except that Dallas is in the way. If the World ever needs an enema the Lord would stick the hose in Dallas. Anyhow we fought our way through there and, just north of D/FW Airport we stopped in the Bass Pro Shop, another place with some nice shootin' irons, but not what I was looking for. Back on the road. Somehow we got turned 'round and were heading for the wilds of North Central Texas, not exactly where we wanted to be. After a small amount of cussin' and a few comments about my IQ from the passenger seat, we got headed right.

Folks, we've never been to Cabella's, the place in huge. They've an interesting way of selling guns. There's a manager that wanders 'round not helping anyone, a few harried salespeople and a platoon of other employees that do little or less. Once one salesman gets a customer, that's his customer, no one else will do anything. That sounds fine but that one guy wanders off and seems have have five people at once. So we look at the shootin' iron we came to see, we look it over, try the action, everything is fine. Salesman says he'll get us one out of the back, we tell him to get several so we can try the triggers and suchlike. Salesman says we can't do that, he can only bring one. Since an action job is only forty bucks we just bought what he brung.

Then Linda Lou spent more that what I saved not buying another $419.00 Cimarron. Sigh.

Anyhow, I have the last bit of iron for getting into the Cowboy Action shoots, now. This morning I jumped into the car and went to the range with both the revolvers. They both go bang, that's a start. The new one definitely needs an action job, the trigger has some serious hitch in it's getalong. Still, it shoots to more or less where it looks, that's the important thing. Actually, with that trigger, I can't tell how well the sights are regulated. I think it's just a hair low which is alright. It's easy to file down the front sight.

Now, by Saturday I must join the Single Action Shooting Society and the local club so I can hit their last Saturday of the month shoot.

Going Shopping.

I'm going shopping today, we've a few bucks left and it's time for my next shootin' iron, the end of my shopping for a Cowboy Action Shootin' battery. We're going to the Doctor's first, it's time for our regular blood work and prescription update. (Be still, my beating heart)

I'm looking for the second revolver, it didn't occur to me that one would need two until I actually read the rules of the SASS bunch. Anyhow, I don't know that we'll actually buy the iron today, we're gonna have to go clean to Fort Worth to look at one at Cabella's. They have a very inexpensive copy of the old Colt Peacemaker, some $289.00 or so for the 4 and 3/8 inch in .45 Colt. It's got the dull blue job, no color case hardening on the frame and an unfinished brass frame on the grips. It's not the iron I'd really like, I personally like the balance of the 5 and 1/2 inch barrel and there aren't very many that wouldn't prefer good blue and nice color case hardening. Trouble is, that low price and that I already HAVE one nice primary gun. So, what we'll do is look 'round the used racks today and then, if we have the energy left, over to Fort Worth to Cabella's if there isn't a good used revolver for, say, $350.00 or so.

I do love me some gun shopping.

The Accidental 9mm Luger Load

In my last post I mentioned going to see my pal Steve, which beminds me of when he was learning to load a little handgun ammo. Steve isn't a shooter like I am, he is a hunter. That's kind of a shame, if he would really apply himself he'd be in the top one per cent of pure shooters and could possibly be in the elite few. He isn't all that interested, though, so he practices enough to be deadly on deer and dove.

Anyhow Steve got himself the 9mm Luger bug and bought himself a Beretta, the civilian version of the new Army gun. I bought a set of Lee dies for it and started cranking out a little ammo so he'd have some practice stuff and then a pard in the scrap metal biz came up with several five gallon bucketfuls of fully jacketed 125 grain bullets. The 9mm shooters in our little club won't EVER have do buy a 9mm bullet for practice again. Anyhow we came up with a real nice practice load, pretty much near the max load of Alliant's Herco powder for the lead bullet worked fine. The load is hot enough that every one of our nine shooters could use it but still low enough that we don't have to worry about having an overpressure event from a change in cartridge cases or primers. It's a load I still recommend to folks, 6.2 grains of Herco behind any 125 grain bullet. I've never seen a nine that wouldn't shoot it.

Then came the day we were short on Herco and, since Steve lives in town, I sent him out after some. Somehow he ended up with a big jug of Blue Dot, instead. Blue Dot is a nice powder for heavy shotshells and magnum revolvers but I've never seen it used in small capacity handgun rounds, it's just too bulky. Since the name of the game with buying powder is, you bought it, it's yours, I started looking for a way to use it. One after another of my manuals failed until I finally went on line and found that Alliant's website has a listing. This was back before we had a computer at home.

All these years later, Steve is still loading Blue Dot in the Nine. The downside is that the case is so full that we have to be real careful until the bullet is seated for fear of spilling powder all over Hell's half acre. The good news is that velocity is fine and there is no way that the bullet could ever be pushed deeper into the case, raising pressure, the powder is just too compressed.

The lesson learned is to not give up on a 'wrong' powder until we have checked every bit of information. Today, of course, that info is right at our fingertips, via the 'net. Under normal circumstances I would never run out and buy Blue Dot for loading the Nine. I kept some around for some decades, though, for loading my .357 revolver rounds and when Steve first bought that Nine I had some on my shelf, it never struck my mind to use it.

George and the Old Fart

It's past time you all meet George. World, this is George. George, meet the world.

George had his second night in the 'Beginner's Class' at dog training last night. I'm not sure how much he's really learning about 'sit' and 'stay'. He is the champ at 'come', though. Well, sort of. He comes to me just fine, he flat won't come to the woman running the class, or anybody else. He just looks at her and says something along the line of "who are you? I don't work for you."

Jackie, the woman running the class says that that's not entirely a bad thing, he'll be much harder to steal that way. She says that German Shepherds are very often one man dogs. Of course, the real reason for this class is basic socialization around both other dogs and people. He had none of that at all in his first five months. THAT part of the plan is really working. He is quite gentle around the other dogs in the class and, although he won't really approach the other people, when they come to him he allows them to do some petting and suchlike. Most important, he is very gentle around strange children.

Afterwards we drove over to meet my best friend and their dog, Roxy. Seein' as how Linda Lou absolutely refuses to bring George on our next vacation out to Arizona, over Christmas, this is important. Steve is pal enough to keep the mess-dog while we're out of the area, assuming that everybody gets along. I drove away thanking the good Lord that they did all get along. That's some five hundred bucks we won't have to spend in boarding.

Strange Happenings in Computerland

Seems that both our desktop computers have blown a gasket and we are unable to access the internet. I'm not quite sure what is up, I'm rather unhappy about it, though.

Blogging will be near-nonexistent while we figure it out.

Anyone interested will be pleased to know that Linda Lou is soon to retire from her job at the Post Office. November 30th will be her last day. The good news is that she absotively and posilutely hates the job. The bad news is that we are going to be stone-cold broke for the next couple of years, until her social security kicks in. Her Postal Service pension will be barely enough to pay our good medical insurance and a few bucks extra. Between her little bit and what I bring in, about $1100 per month. Then sometime after two years we'll be up to some $1700 or so, that's just about enough to live on. All grown children, young grandchildren and broke blogpappies should be warned that birthdays and Xmases will be slim to none.

Columbus Day

Well, another Columbus Day has come and is just about gone. I don't spend a whole lot of time worrying about that long-dead Italian but every once in a while I do thank him. If not for Columbus I'd be stuck in some Euro hole or other waiting for the next batch of Cossacks to charge trough the Ville, slaughtering everyone.

I'm sure glad not to be a Euro.

Range and Bench Report

Apologies to all of my few readers, been busy lately. Don't imagine it's gonna get better soon.

I do have an interesting range report. I took the Son-in-law to the range with the new .30-06. This being a range with a real set of concrete benches we set the rifle up on a Harris Bipod and rear bag. I suspect he would have done better in a regular sitting position, he is simply not used to the recoil of full charge .30-06 rounds. Fortunately I had fifty of Hodgdon's 'youth' loads' along.

Handloaders should know about Hodgdon's 'youth' loads, they are an interesting concept. The idea is to take any big game cartridge for which H4895 powder is used. Take the maximum charge of H4895 and multiply said charge by 60%. Then, as your 'youth' grows and gets adjusted to the recoil, add a grain or two of powder until we reach the full charge. By careful bullet selection we can hunt deer out to about two hundred yards or so with the very beginning of these. At any rate I had a supply of Hornaday's 130 grain Single Shot Pistol Bullets handy and loaded a batch of these in front of 40.0 grains of H4895. The velocity should be right around 2500 fps, almost what a .308 gives in those fancy one shot pistols. As Dean and Stephanie get used to the kick I can increase the charge.

The interesting thing, of course, is how these critters shoot? I did not shoot any, on purpose. I don't much want the kids trying to compare themselves with me. Dean, though, had several groups in the inch and a half to two inch range. Given the two hundred yard nature of the ammo, plenty good enough. My next step is to load up a half box, fifty round boxes, of 42 grains and 44 grains each. If I can get him to about 2800 fps or so by opening day, with that light bullet, he'll be good as far as he'll be able to see the critters on this particular ranch.

I don't know of any powder but H4895, except maybe IMR 4895 and Accurate's 2495 that has a range of pressure with good ignition wide enough for these 'youth' loads. They may be out there, I just haven't tried. These loads are much like the 'midrange' loads that were popular when I was a kid except with a hunting bullet instead of a target pill.

I've loaded a few of those all-brass shotshells, the Magtech 12 gauge that I asked about in my last post. Thank you, Tres Equis, that was exactly the information I was looking for. I'm loading one box of 25 with the old original type of wads from Circle Fly and one box of 25 with one on Winchester's shotcup wads on top of a regular overpowder wad., just to see how that works. The shotcup type wad will, if it works out okay, be just what I need to go hunting. I'll try these sometime soon. I'm using 80 grains of FFG Black Powder, GOEX if that matters. I've some room to grow the charge. On the standard 'old fashioned' wad column I shooting an ounce of shot, on the 'shotcup' wads 480 grains since that what it takes to fill them.

Not much else to talk about, boring doctor visits and therapy, messing with this puppy that eats anything. The creepy dog ate my eyeglasses, I had to get new ones. I would've killed the mutt if it weren't for the fact that I've been putting off new glasses for over a year. ARRRGH! Had to get a puppy.

The New Toys

I've just received fifty new twelve gauge cartridge cases, Magtech's new all-brass affairs. I'm waiting for my delivery of a hand powered setup to load them.

These are for black powder loading. I'm wondering if anybody out there has loaded such things or am I going to be working from a few spare and sparse things in print.

Anyone have any experience?