Big Town Gun Show

My cowboy action club, the Texas Tenhorns, bought a table at the Big Town Gun Show. I volunteered to help work the table at the show, trying to drum up a little interest in Cowboy Action Shooting.

When I first moved to the Dallas area in the '70s Big Town Mall was still a big deal, built in 1959 it was the first air conditioned inside mall in the southwest, in what was then a small town outside of Dallas. Today the mall is gone, the only thing left is a huge parking lot and the exhibition hall.

The cities have grown so that all the small towns that were well outside of Dallas are now surrounded by the city. All of the fields where folks used to hunt quail and dove are paved over. This has much to do with city folks not liking hunting, there was a time when hunters could dive twenty miles from the city's center and find a place to hunt, and it was inexpensive.

Today a free place to hunt means owning land far from the pavement. Hunting is fighting a battle we may not win as it becomes so much more expensive.

I wasn't there for hunting, though, we were just telling folks about the joys of CAS. We talked to a few folks, most everyone else was after one, or more, of those "scary guns". There were lots and lots of the SKS, the civilian versions of the AR15 and AK47, rows of cut down shotguns. Tons of handguns. Prices are insane. The SKS that sold for $99.00 before the scary gun ban during the Clinton Administration (that helped bring on the '94 election where Gingrich took over the House for the first time in forty years. Anyhow, those guns are up to over $400.00.

Primers were up to $45.00 per thousand. Ammo prices are insane. The revolvers that police departments traded off for those newfangled self stuffers have tripled, or more, in price. An old Colt Official Police was $450.00. Since I wasn't interested in another .38 Special I did not ask if it was a storekeepers gun or had been reblued, there was no holster wear on the finish.

I did get to look at a few genuine, engraved Colt Single Action Army revolvers as well as a Bisley Model. I got to actually handle a few of those fine old revolvers. The table was across from ours and I managed to watch it while the owner went to the john. So when he came back I got to handle a real Colt Bisley model, a second generation nickel plated, engraved Single Action Army, another engraved SAA, this one blued. Those last two revolvers were $8,000.00 and $7500.00. Don't forget I have a birthday coming up!

There was also a Colt 1911 model, the serial number said that this gun was a WW1 veteran. This wasn't exactly a pristine shooter, it had holster wear, worn checkering on the grips, dings and nicks. A gun with character.

Before I work another gun show for the club I must buy some boots with a walking heel. Those mule ear boots are good if I found myself on the hurricane deck of a half broke bronc, not so good for walking around on concrete. Especially wearing two Colt clones.

Since hardly anyone was even slowing down at our table I filled one of my vest pockets with the club's business cards and went around handing them to anyone carrying a single action or lever rifle.

I only bought a shotgun cleaning rod, even those are up in prices!

The plus side? There was only one table with assorted Nazi crap. That's a big plus. There was a VFW table, collecting money for the disabled vets and their families, and the families of those who came home in an aluminum box. Even with all the hate and discontent stirred up by the left the vets of this war are being treated a lot better than the vets of my war.

The Dallas TEA Party table was, thank the Lord, on the opposite side of the building from the Nazi crap table.

So, I'm home after another visit with my neurologist today, I'm way behind on my blog reading. Oh, the Doc doubled my dose of Neurontin. Linda Lou is wondering if this dose will make me comatose. Well, if it does, that will save money.

So, that was my weekend, how was yours?

Note: I don't yet have SASS or the Texas Tenhorns on my blogroll. If you care, Google them. Eventually I'll get around to putting them up, until them, use your favorite search engine.

A Nice Day Off.

I managed to make it to my first Cowboy Action Shoot since late last spring. It was a local shoot, six stages. For those that don't know a stage is a shooting scenario. It consists of ten (or more) shots from the revolver(s), nine or ten (or more) shots from a pistol caliber rifle and four or more shots from a shotgun. We shoot at steel targets, usually pretty close. As a matter of fact we had the shotgun targets too close at the first half of the shoot and people were getting peppered with birdshot bouncing back.

Once we moved those targets back another five yards the bounceback was more tolerable. Once lead shot bounces from steel it is ballistically identical to a ping pong ball. Up close it is fast but it loses speed like a bowling ball thrown straight up. By a weakling.

Anyhow I shot in the Frontier Cartridge class with my black powder loads in .45 Colt and 12 gauge hammer double shotgun. I missed one target in the first stage and then my shootin' irons became death rays and I didn't miss a target again the rest of the match. Well, a very slow death ray.

I made the mistake of buying all my gear before I ever went to a shoot or talked to any competitors and so I bought all the big cartridges. Then I started shooting and discovered that the winners all shoot light recoiling guns, mostly .38s and a few .32s. If I had the budget I'd replace my Cowboy Action handguns and rifle with that grand old .32-20. Ah well, I'll never win a match but with the black powder I can make a lot of noise, stink, more smoke and a whole lot of fun.

The interesting thing about black powder in cartridge guns is that the noise and perceived recoil makes most folks think that the loads are real hot. Shotshells are still rated in "drams equivalent" meaning that smokeless shells are rated as to how fast the shot would go if pushed by that many drams of black powder. I usually shoot two and a half drams or two and three quarters of real black, light twelve gauge loads are three drams. A Dram is 27.3 grains. A grain is 7,000th of a pound. Black powder is so inefficient that half of the mass of powder goes out as solid matter, adding to the recoil. So the smokeless load would be something like twenty-twenty five grains with very little staying solid to add to the recoil.

Ah, nobody cares about that, just remember if you see a whole lot of smoke then the powder level usually isn't up to the noise. My .45 loads probably leave the barrel of my revolvers at around 700 feet per second or a bit less. In a strong revolver I could get that same bullet up to 1350 fps with smokeless while with black the best I could do would be about 900 or a little more. Not that I would advise standing in front of a .45 slug at black powder velocities. Or a muzzle loading rifle, either. The butcher's bill of the War of Yankee Aggression shows what those old smoke poles could do. Ah well, I'd rather shoot the steel rustlers and train robbers.

The day started off nice and clear with a temperature in the mid sixties. As the day progressed it clouded up and never got to eighty.

The only drawback was that I'm getting too old to tote those big steel targets off and back on the trailer. Lord I ached this morning.

The top and bottom pictures are me. If ou enbiggen that pic you will see the cloud of smoke forming. When it is real humid and the wind is still a black powder shooter has to do some fancy duckin' and dodgin' to see the targets. The third picture from the bottom is a Pard loading up his replica of a Winchester Model 87, that old lever action shotgun. If you always wondered what to get me for a present...

A Big Disappointment

A few days ago I was online at the SASS Wire, a bulletin board for Cowboy Action Shooters and the question of gunbelts and holsters came up. I wanted to reccommend my holstermaker, Brazos Jack of Etowah River Leather but because I am still unsure of putting in urls and such I went to his website so I could write the addy down.

This is when I saw the news, Brazos Jack has retired because of poor health. This happened at the end of November. Nobody ever tells me anything. The good news is that Brazos Jack is still creating gunleather designs for Hide Crafter. So the handy can still have a Brazos Jack gunrig. Klutzes like me, though, have to find another way.

I shall drop an extra prayer or two for the health and well being of a genuine artist in leather and all around good guy.