Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619

My favorite wife is my wife, too.

Our Pacific Rattlesnake (sometimes called Western, but that can confuse it with the Western Diamondback, a much bigger critter), is the only rattler native to Washington State. It occurs only east of the Cascade Mtns. I've seen lots of them in that particular creek drainaige in central Washington in the Bluet Pass area, which is known locally to have a lot of them, probably because of some local, perhaps warmer, conditions, particularly early in the season. They are easy to tolerate, because they are relatively small. The big diamondbacks and timber rattlers of elsewhere would be less welcome.

This feller in our campsite 3 years back, on a short overnight hike:

My partially-informed expectation is that with respect to a life policy, a murder would be regarded as accidental from the standpoint of the insured. Sort of like if he was attacked by a tiger-- the tiger's intent would be irrelevant. So there would be coverage. But don't take my word for it before you go into tiger country.

What does one do with a rattlesnake when one has successfully hunted them? Is it the skin? Here in the Pacific NW, we have only one species: the Western (not to be confused with the Western Diamondback); also referred to as the Pacific rattlesnake. One of the smaller rattlers; bites are rare, deaths extremely rare. We've often seen them in our 'season opener' backpack hike in central Washington. They are often on the trail; one year not long back we had one in camp. We got some good photos. One year, about 5 years back, at the trailhead a guy showed us one he'd chopped the head off of in the parking lot. I asked him why he'd killed it. As I remember, he had no explanation. The hike is Ingalls Creek. For some reason, the drainage is known for rattlers, to which we can personally attest. They are an interesting aspect of the hike. I have some good photos. I've never been able to figure out how to upload photos here.

I did a fair amount of insurance work in law practice over the years, and I never heard of returning a premium under such circumstances, because the policy was in force; the exclusion was an inherent limitation of coverage. Indeed, I would think it unwise of the insurance company to return it. It would thereby create confusion, which often works against insurance companies. Those cases are indeed most often found in mystery novels, because in the real world, in most states, life policies are incontestable after 2 or 3 years, and suicide exclusions expire by statute most places in that time frame. The idea being that you can't buy a life policy in contemplation of suicide. Unless, of course, you're really planning ahead!

As the old proverb goes, "comparisons are odious", but it takes nothing from Sean Connery, who was unparalleled, to conclude Craig is perhaps the only really worthy successor, a point that Connery himself agreed with. Sean Connery's Bond was perfectly of his time, a time that many of us happily remember, and Craig is of our time, for better or worse. As Pierce Brosnan pointed out in an interview clip I saw recently, the Bourne movies and some others "upped the game", and called for the Bond franchise to meet the challenge, and Brosnan was not going to be that guy. Daniel Craig filled the bill.

Here's a short clip of interviews of Connery showing his views of Roger Moore and Daniel Craig. I agree with him...

Great shot. How do you upload photos here? I see lots of pards doing it and I've done it on other sites; how is it done here?

We have had all-mail ballots in Washington for several years now. That is, they mail the ballot to you; you can return it by mail or by secure drop boxes located several places in the county. It's counted if postmarked the day of the election. I wish we still went to the polls, but at the same time, this is very convenient. It's worked smoothly enough, but unlike many states, our procedures are well-established. I don't trust to the mail; we always put our ballots in the drop box by the auditor's office; i.e. where the counting actually happens. So, we voted today. We've had the ballots for 10 days or so, but we always wait til a few days before in case of last-minute developments in local offices.

Uberti 1973 rifle in .45 Colt. Marlin 1894 in .44 mag. Mossberg 464 in .30-30

My kids and I have had a running joke for decades over this cliche'. "He died doing what he loved-- falling down a cliff in terror." "He died doing what he loved-- trapped in an avalanche, considering his folly and regret as he suffocates." And so on. We always say: "He died just a few minutes after doing what he loved." Dark humor, to be sure. But as Stalin said, "Dark humor is like food. Some get it and some don't."

The enormous size of this country is such that even a modest increase over usual demand has a big impact. Just like toilet paper and hand sanitizer-- we were amazed by the empty shelves, now the shelves are full. Bicycles, tents, camp stoves, kayaks; outdoor supplies of all kinds disappeared from the shelves as 'lockdown' folks flocked to the outdoors. Clorox wipes vanished and Clorox is still far behind the demand. Used cars are increasing in price and flying off the lots as folks stay away from public transport. There are innumerable examples. Increase firearms and ammo demand by even a few percent, like everything else, it's the same picture. In the case of guns and ammo, the Covid effect is greatly increased by civil unrest and election issues. So it's doubtful that "something more than hoarding is amiss".

This parallels my own experience, as I set out in my original post. Stacks of .44 spl when everything else is gone....yet the .44 spl is not a 'specialized' or oddball caliber at all. .44 mag owners, of whom there are many (.44 mag is nowhere to be found) could shoot it all the day long. I find it most interesting!

I like it and watched in the theater and since on the tube. I think it definitely superior to the 1976 version. That one must have been one of the last "all star cast" war movies of the era. A whole gang of stars takes away from the story. The "scenes of personal activities" were short and to the point. Contrasted with the subplot in the old movie about the Japanese girlfriend, which was distracting and, I think, pointless to the Battle of Midway. The CGI was somewhat overdone, but good. If you don't do CGI, all you are ever going to be able to do in such a movie is show archival footage, which isn't actually the movie, and is the same thing over and over.

I recollect when you dropped back in not so long ago. When they redid the Saloon format a few years back the individual post counts dropped way down; I don't think there ever was an explanation. I lost about 2,500 as I remember. The curious thing was that they weren't all gone, which might have figured with a new system, but they just dropped about 50% or so, some more, some less.

So was the one the guy driving the camera car was holding. Half-second later-- Jeep and boulders would have done him...

Yes.

A long life and 45 years of the practice of law, mostly in trial practice, led me to formulate the following-- Red Gauntlet's Ineluctable Maxims: 1. All indignation is false indignation; 2. All outrage is mock outrage; 3. All offense is feigned; 4. All threats are empty. (These apply as fully to oneself, as to others.) If you recognise these precepts you never get angry any more, and you can turn all arguments on their heads. Dissension vanishes, novel facts emerge, digestion flows like a wide river...

Interesting replies. I too really like the round. I'm not suprised that a lot of CAS shooters like the .44 special; in fact, the piles of boxes of the caliber that I saw in two stores yesterday were Cowboy loads. I can understand the issue with reloaders with .44 mags just downloading those cases. The smaller of the two stores I go to had non-cowboy Magtech .44 spls for a long time after the panic buying started; I bought lots of them (two at a time, which is how I like to do it). Those were finally gone a couple of weeks ago. But even those took a long time to sell. And that was at his old standard retail price in the store of $31.95. At the same time, he is selling Magtech .38 spl for $59 per box! What strikes me is that the shelves have been swept clean of most everything but those piles of .44 spl boxes were still there. Just sort of surprised that .44 mag shooters wouldn't grab them; there are a lot of those guys out there. Got me thinking about the cartridge.

And also interesting is that, while there are countless models of .38 spl-only revolvers in current production, as they have been forever, as far as I know (without checking lately), the Bulldog has been the only one in .44 spl-only for a long time. As for buying the ammo these days, I've got quite a bit, a couple boxes at a time. Enough even under current circumstances I'm pretty content with the inventory.

Whoa. Even before the Jeep came down, I was gritting my teeth: better not make any error on that road! Lucky timing for the car with the camera...

I now and then ponder the .44 Special. I have a Charter Arms Bulldog in the caliber, a .44 mag Marlin 1894 among my cowboy guns, and a .44 mag Redhawk. .44 spl seems to be sort of an orphan caliber. It's not 'rare', of course; and it's not 'hard to find' compared to some calibers, but at the same time it is often not found on the shelves of many stores, or only in small quantities. In ordinary times, you may have to go to a few stores to get it. And yet, everybody carries .44 magnum. Cowboy Action shooters like us'n seem to use it a fair amount, because quite often the only .44 spl on the shelves are cowboy loads. What makes me most curious is why .44 spl has never played the role with .44 mag owners that .38 spl does with .357 mag shooters. Innumerable .357 users shoot .38 spl all the day long, and .357 mag on 'special occasions' (so to speak). What got me thinking again about it is that over last few months and weeks I've been able to buy .44 spl at ordinary retail prices three different places. Today I went to Sportco, a regional 'big box'. The shelves continue virtually bare like most everywhere. Yet there was a 25-box stack of .44 special. I went to another, much smaller store, where I've been buying .44 spl all along. He still has lots of boxes at ordinary retail, whereas he's selling other standard calibers (of which he has a lot) at very high, even exorbitant, prices. I shoot .44 spl all the time in the Marlin and the Redhawk, and, of course, in the Bulldog. Why don't .44 mag owners, of which there are a lot, buy up .44 special? It puts holes in paper at the range as well as anything else!

My Grandad was in the Royal Air Force in the First World War, flying as an artillery spotter. He once lost engine power at 4,000 ft and glided to a landing; he said those biplanes glided well! I was a grown man of 29 with a family when he died; in fact I was trying a jury case when I was told of his death. I knew several WWI vets. Then a day came not too many years ago when it was established that there wasn't a single Great War vet of any nationality still alive in the whole world. Many of us grew up surrounded by people who were born in the 19th Century; grandparents, neighbors, folks at church.....Then, just a few short years ago, it was announced that there was not a single person left in the whole world who was born in the 19th Century. We are now not so far off when that will be true of all WWII veterans. Even a kid who lied about his age and joined the Navy at 17 in the last months of the war would be 92 now if alive-- the very youngest. RIP "Cal" Calderone.

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