Still in the 60's

Go global warming. It was still 63 when I got off work. Yeaaaah. Came home and cleaned up, then off to the club for some more fun. It is suppose to be in the upper 50's and lower  60's through Saturday. Trying to take advantage of it while it lasts. Today is the club meet \ gun raffle. I dropped my tickets off , shot at cowboy town and got out of there. It is the one meeting everyone shows up at in hopes of winning a gun. Winner need not be present, so I vacated. There are so many people at that meeting, they set up folding chairs and you have to hold your plate in your lap as there is no room to put the tables up. Way too crowded for my liking.

Engineer from work came over yesterday and I demonstrated what all is involved in reloading. I walked him through setting up the dillon and ran off a few rounds. I am letting him have an old single stage Lee loader I had so he can see if he likes it or not. Set him up with an autoprimer , some shell plates , reloading guides, funnel and some miscellaneous items. Gave him the rundown on setting it up and ripped him a copy of a reloading video I have that is pretty good. He brought me some ammo for my Garrand and some .303 for my enfields.

His brother is going to be a member of the club next month. He is the one who had the little kid that liked my Garrand and loves military rifles. Told him to let me know next time they are out there and I will bring some more out for him to see. Kid really likes enfields and I have several I can take out to show him. Figure I can take the sks out as well. He will get a kick out of  the bayonet. I always have my single action revolvers with me, and I let them shoot the little .22 revolver at the cowboy town. They had a blast. They were begging their dad to join the club. A couple more guys at work were brought in last month and this month.

Another guy from work is buying my old Lee turret press, so I am getting rid of some of the old stuff I no longer use and introducing a few of the kids at work to reloading. It is enjoyable and saves a lot of money.One of my buddies from work is suppose to drop by so he can reload some .45 colt for his rifle. His kid lost his job and moved back home, so my buddy lost his reloading room. I am still set up on .45 colt, so it shouldn't take long to reload the brass he has. Might work out a swap. He wants some lead bullets for cowboy town (which I have a box of 500)  and I wouldn't mind trying some hornady bullets to try out to see what kind of groups I can get out of the carbine.

Sunny day

It was a very pleasant day at the range. Made a lot of empty brass today. The reloads worked flawlessly. Absolutely love my new lever action. Didn't hit the rifle range as it was a swamp and I didn't bring my waders. We have been getting a lot of rain and in the fall they leveled the range area and created a mud pit in the wet weather. I imagine they will seed it in the spring, but it is a mess now. When the temps drop in a week or so it should freeze enough to walk on. Bumped into a couple of the guys from cowboy town I talk with at the club. One of them steered me toward a supplier for lead bullets that are really reasonably priced. About a third of what I am paying now. Going to get an order in for a thousand of .38 and .45.  The guy who told me about the lead was out with a nice 1911 he uses at the wild bunch shoots they have. I need to start loading for that as well. I pick up .45 acp lead at the show, but it would be cheaper loading it myself. I have a Smith and Wesson 1911 and it's something different to shoot over there. Wednesday is the monthly club meeting and the gun raffle, sooo, I am hoping on coming home with another new toy. For free, I am not even picky which one : )  Figure I will take a few of the guns to cowboy town before the meeting. It is suppose to be 62 degrees and sunny Wednesday. I hope the rest of winter goes like this. I don't care if I ever see snow again.

Very productive weekend so far

Went out yesterday morning and had my taxes done and filed, so that is out of the way for another year. I then headed over to the gun shop and picked up a couple miscellaneous items I forgot the other day. Ran off a few hundred rounds of .38 ammo before breaking dillon down and setting up for .45 long colt. Would have been a lot quicker if you didn't have to change primer rods from small to large. Had trouble with pick up tube at first, then discovered some flash on the plastic tip inside pick up tube. The primers were hanging up on it. Trimmed it clean and all went well. Reloaded one hundred rounds of the .45 yesterday and will finish loading one hundred more today. Want to pick up some more brass at the next gun show so I can keep more on hand. I am taking a couple single stage presses I have in for a couple of the guys at work who want to get into reloading. Loaning them my reloading video as well. They can see if it looks like something they want to get into before investing a lot of money. See if they would like to come over and try the dillon out while it is set up as well. I really like the dillon alot better than the old lee press I had. It didn't have the primer set up or the powder drop. A lot more labor intensive. One of the guys at work said he would be interested in the lee if he decides to get into reloading.

Going to pack up some guns and head to the club to turn some of the reloads back to brass again. Not  too bad out today. Suppose to be about 60 degrees for the next couple of days. Probably load the guns before heading to work Monday and Tuesday as well. That way I can head straight to the club from work. It is only a ten minute ride from work and a couple of the guys wanted to see the 66 lever action. The one engineer from work just got a new rifle from cabelas he wanted to show me. He called yesterday while I was at H&R block getting my taxes done. Him and his kids were out at the club. His kids just got their first rifles at Christmas time so they and their dad were out trying their new toys.

The right ammo makes all the difference.

The 66 lever action is absolutely beautiful. It feeds so incredibly smooth and is just a joy to shoot. The big difference between the 66 and the 94 is the way the carrier operates. The 66 is a simple design. When you operate the lever, the carrier block drops straight down, bullet is pushed onto carrier from magazine, carrier block goes straight up with cartridge held perfectly horizontal in carrier lining up perfectly  every time. Whereas the 94 has a carrier that picks up cartridge and hinges upward as bolt comes forward so cartridge is at an angle. This sometimes creates a feed issue with cartridges binding or flipping as they did in the Rossi .357. The 66 feeds and shoots as fast as you can operate the lever. The .45 long colt doesn't kick much harder than the .38 does, but the targets sure sound out a lot louder. I am definitely going to be shooting this one on a regular basis. I need to drop by the store tomorrow and pick up the dies and bullets for it. See about picking up some more brass at the next gun show.

 It was a little chilly when I got off work (35degrees to be exact) and it was drizzling out, but that just meant that the range wouldn't be crowded. I went to sign in and found only one person had been there since I was there yesterday. I went through half the box of ammo I bought yesterday, and the round nose flat point bullets made a big difference in the way it fed. That will teach me to pay more attention when picking up ammo next time. It also determined what bullets I will use to load.Very accurate as well. I wish I had more ammo so I could have played longer. I saved part of the box so my buddy can try it out tomorrow if he doesn't wind up working late. Two more days and it's the week end. I am going to try and get some more rounds reloaded for the pistols and hopefully load some .45's Friday  if I can get a set of dies.

The engineer at work ordered a gun from Cabellas gun library and is suppose to get it Friday or Saturday so I may have some company at the range. He is the one that brought his brother and nephews out last time. He wants to get into reloading. I told him I would loan him my old press to see if he likes reloading before he gets too much invested in it. I told him I would bring in a video on reloading he can use as well.

Finally made it to the club...briefly

I actually got out on time today, giving me an hour of daylight for shooting. Club rules, you have to stop half hour before sunset. There is a substantial difference in the knock down power between the .45 long colt and the .38 special. The new rifle will feed better, when I use the right bullet tomorrow. I picked up lead ammo, which is fine, but it was semi wad cutters. Semi wad cutters do not feed well in a lever action. Soooo, on the way home, I hit Red Ghost gun shop and picked up some round nose flat points that should work fine. Try them out tomorrow and pick up dies, bullets and conversion kit tomorrow so I can reload for the weekend. Hope to get the M1A out as well. I will pack the truck in the morning so I can go directly to the club from work. I can make it from work in ten minutes so it would buy me some daylight. Hoping the rain they are predicting misses us or hits after the sun goes down. Looks like we might have eight hour days this week.I like overtime, but it is nice to get a breather once in a while. Surprised the club wasn't packed as nice as it was today.

Good day for a trip to Whittakers

I couldn't resist. I had to go back and get this model 66 lever action. It is unbelievably smooth and beautiful as well. They had some lead ammo for it as well, so we will be breaking her in tomorrow at cowboy town. They are calling for mid 50's for tomorrow so it should be rather pleasant out there. I picked up some Trail Boss powder to try out as well. Try loading some tonight to try out in the revolvers. Want to try out the M1A while I am out as well.

They had a few trapdoors and some 03's in the military section that weren't too bad. Trapdoor may find its way home one of these days. They were unbelievably busy today. The counters were loaded with guns heading to new homes. I was happy to look around at the inventory and wait for the crowd to taper off..Picked up  a reload manual while I was there. They have the new Speer manual out as well. Found they have the Greek ammo for the 03 on the shelf for a really reasonable cost. They must have had it for a while as it is actually a little lower than the CMP has it for at present. I couldn't find the H&R Garrand they were showing online. Didn't make the Ferdinand gunshow. May do that tomorrow to see what it is like. I don't think I have been to that one yet.

Yeah, it's the weekend

It was a long hard week, but it is behind me now. I managed to get the CNC OD grinder back up and running again. They really mangled it bad while I was out. Bad enough that they crushed the accordion guards that cover the ways,but then they used a pry bar to remove them instead of leaving it alone until someone with a little common sense could look at it. I was able to bend them back into shape and reuse them. New ones run $4000.00 . Wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't tried to fix it. Then they run the machine with the guarding off and wonder why coolant went everywhere. Fortunately for them, the rubber guard that resides under the metal one they mangled kept coolant out of the oil and the ways of the machine.

 Caught up most of the work that fell behind when I went on vacation in December. I actually got off after only nine hours today. Yeah. And I get a two day weekend. Hopped over to a chinese restaurant I found via the Internet on the way home. Wasn't too bad. Tomorrow I am either going to the gunshow in Ferdinand or down to Whitakers. They still have my lever action I am contemplating as well as a few other interesting guns I want to check out.

Will also head down to the club to burn up some ammo in cowboy town. Hopefully with my new lever action. I can finally shoot my M1A as well. Weather is only suppose to be in the 40's, but dry and sunny. Need to pick up some more powder while I am out as well. Want to try out Trail boss and see how it fairs. Some of the guys at the club use it, others use titegroup. Need to order some lead bullets in .45 as well. They shoot wild bunch at the club and you can use a 1911 for it. I thought I had picked up some at one of the shows, but I either can't find them or am mistaken. Really wish I had been able to make the Indy show as last time I was there, there was a vendor that had a really great price on lead bullets.