Indy 1500 weekend coming up

Hopefully off this weekend. The Indy gun show is coming up this weekend, and I hope to be there. Work is busy, but there is a slim chance I won't make the Saturday list. It is a bit of a drive, but well worth the trip. Been getting the chores done during the week after work so hopefully, if I am off, I can go enjoy the show and not fall behind. Next week, the NCOWS are coming to the club for their annual shoot. It is really something to see. They set up old cavalry style tents and camp out for the whole week. All the NCOW members stay in the 1800's garb. I hope to get out there while the shoots are still going, so I can get some pictures and video of the events.

Wishing everyone a great memorial day

I took Friday off as a personal day just to lengthen the weekend a bit more. It sure is nice to relax a little bit. I took advantage of some of the time and converted some of my families old slides into digital images.

I came across this old picture of my dad on the USS Shangilla where he served in his younger days. It had some other pictures of the aircraft carrier. I haven't seen the slides since we were really little kids, so looking at the pictures now is like seeing them for the first time.

It has some of the old military pictures, but there were hundreds of pictures of relatives from before I was even thought of. It is really interesting seeing pictures from long ago. I will have to burn a CD for my brother and send it off to him. There are a lot of pics of my mom and dad while they were still dating. Old black and white photos of when we were little kids.Slides are a bit old, so have to clean them up a bit with photoshop. Hope everyone has a nice memorial day.

Nice gun show

The 4H show was getting pretty lame, but it has added quite a few new vendors and is a really nice show again. They have several vendors that have a lot of militaria. One vendor has books and models, which was different. I picked up some interesting books. I mostly read from my kindle nowadays, but he had a good book on Browning and another one on the Civil war. They had a lot of bayonets at several different tables, which is unusual at this location. Wasn't quite as packed as the last few shows have been. Saw a Krag that was in particularly rough shape, but then again, if I were 114 years old, I would look pretty rough too. One guy had an extensive collection of historical rifle scopes on display. Quite a few of the vendors had collections that were not for sale out on display. It is too bad they don't allow picture taking at this location as some of the displays were very interesting. I hit Best Buy afterwards. They have some good dvd's on sale. Picked up Flags of our Fathers, Patton and the Alien anthology at really cheap prices. Flags of our Fathers was excellent and I haven't seen it since it was at the theater. Clint did a very good job on this film. It was a short weekend, but I am hoping on a three day weekend next week. Only time will tell. Made spaghetti and now it is time to chill and watch a movie. Back to work tomorrow, but if it goes as smooth as Saturday, things will be good.

Made it to the all too short weekend

Had to work today, but it went very well. Things actually ran great and the day flew by. Wound up working over a couple hours, but, it still was a good day. Tomorrow is the gun show at the local 4H center. I believe they have a motorcycle show going as well, but on that part I am not for sure. Figure on hitting the gun show in the morning, and then either hitting the range or working in the garage for a while.

Happy Birthday to me

I bought myself a nice little birthday present. Whittakers had a couple rifles I wanted to check out, so I headed down there. One of the rifles they were advertising as a Swiss M31. I figured it was a K31. Wrong. It was a K11 carbine, for $199. I have a K31 that I really like, but am always looking for it's relatives, just to have. The rifles prior to the K31 have weaker bolts, so it isn't as much wanting the older ones to shoot, as it is having the series. The numbers are all matching. I don't think they will ever be worth a whole lot, but I just like the unique design and they shoot very well.

The carbine on top is the K31 I already had with it's bolt over it. The one on the bottom is the K11 carbine with it's bolt beneath.

 Here is a closeup of the bolts. Top one is of the K31 and the bottom is the K11. This link gives better details and history to these interesting rifles as well as details of the design changes and their benefits. http://www.swissrifles.com/sr/

It was a beautiful day, and it is always a scenic ride when driving through Kentucky. I am going to have to head back again soon. I saw a Remington rolling block carbine with the saddle ring. I wanted to check what they are going for and the price is more than reasonable and it is in great shape. It was a great day off work. One of the odd perks with my company, they give you your birthday off with pay. Back to work for two more days and hopefully we will get a three day weekend after this weekend if we are lucky.

Despite the rain, it was still a great day

New targets at cowboy town. Double points for headlights. They had a combat shoot going on in the cowboy town area, so, I guess I won't be shooting cowboy town today. But, I did manage to take some pics of the new structures and improvements.

Here is their new gallows addition to the town. I like the ramp that extends out the front. It returns your brass so you don't have to dig it out of the grass.

 Rosa's cantina got a face lift as well. They are getting ready to host the NCOWS 2012 shoot. Place is looking great.

I picked up a cheap little plinker at the estate auction they had before the raffle. It's an old browning challenger. Didn't win a gun this year, but I had a good time anyway. They had a silent auction for miscellaneous items. I won some machinist tools cheap, so that was different.

 Third prize was an M1A. First prize was a 5.56 AR that came with a suppressor and the money to pay for the tax on the suppressor. Second prize was a Kel Tec shotgun. Can't think of a real reason for owning one other than it looks so freakin cool.13 rounds of 12 gage shooting goodness. If there ever was a zombie Apocalypse, this would be the gun to have ;) The show was a good time. Got to see some of my friends at the club and all was good.

It is going to be a great weekend.

Tomorrow is the friends of the NRA banquet at the club. A chance to win one of 25 guns along with a lot of other prizes. They have an estate auction before hand of a private gun collection. I may head down to Whitakers to check out a few rifles they have listed. They have an interesting Uberti pump action 45 colt rifle for sale. The price is great. They also have a few other rifles I would like to look at. Been running the Vette around the last few days. She is running fine. It handles great on the winding country roads. It is extremely hard to keep the speed down close to the speed limit. It is a blast and handles great. Thinking about taking a personal day Monday just for an extra day of fun. Work in our department is temporarily caught up and we have been working a ton of hours. I have a few personal days saved up and the weather is too nice for work. Suppose to rain Sunday, so I may load Sunday and shoot Monday. Hope to be shooting a new gun from the show, but if not, I have plenty to play with.