Three Foot Johnson

I'd be at the top of the list for a pair or three of .38-40's, but I don't think they chamber that one. 44-40 would be OK... I guess...

I worked in a similar facility, but on a much larger scale, from '78 to '01. Toward the end, we even acquired a couple small rotary melters, as in the video, to do low-volume reclamation and recycling of batteries and circuit boards. The main operation would typically turn out about 200 tons of "finish lead" every 24 hours, which were shipped out by rail in 10 ton pigs, ten to a car, to another ASARCO plant that would go through a more refined process to separate the lead, gold, & silver. Even though it was a lead and copper smelter, the number one product ended up being "food grade" su

Colt is the Gold Standard?

My 10 gauge reloading tools.

I sent a postal money order from Helena, Montana to Tipton, Michigan on the 16th - I just contacted the seller and it hasn't arrived yet as of today.

I've been looking for awhile, and have yet to find a published load less than around 1150 fps. Winchester's Low Noise/Low Recoil 20g 7/8 oz load is rated at 980 fps (AA20FL8), just like their 12 gauge load, but they don't say what it is. I've been using ~12 grains Unique with 7/8 oz of shot, which is less than anything I've seen published, but I've never tried to chrono it. It kicks harder than Winchester's 980 fps 12 gauge Featherlite load though.

I've got a lot of different thicknesses of brass flat stock on hand, but I really wanted to use silver... ... and the stainless is silver colored... ... so the story is... ... it's a segment of a Spanish Piece of Eight recovered from the Black Pearl after it was sunk off Oak Island during WWII by the CSS Hunley. Funny how a two hour job can turn into several hours over the course of two days.

I gave silver coins a look, but dimes are far too thin for a good mechanical fit in the slot. Two of them, shaved and soldered together, might have been workable... A silver quarter was a snug fit, but looking close, the edge is raised slightly above the rest of the coin and filing the edge flat to the coin would make for a less than ideal fit. Knife tang - 0.066", Mercury dime - 0.0475" .25-20 made in 1905.

Here's a nickel's worth of free advice. If you need a front sight blade and discover an old Chicago Cutlery stainless steel kitchen knife tang is the exact thickness you need... KEEP SEARCHING! That stuff is about impossible to drill a hole through, no matter how slow your drill press runs. A little final shaping, and I can finally step outside and start carving it down to point-of-impact.

Same reason you can't use a 10" bowling ball, or a football with less than 12.5 psi. Standardized rules.

About the lowest price I've seen here lately was $1300, shipped, for a pair of 4 5/8" stainless .357 New Vaqueros w/SBH hammers & action job - they were snapped up by a dealer 7 minutes after posting. Somewhere in the $700 range for stock .357's or .45's seems to be about the going rate. I just paid $807 for an "as new in box" 4 5/8" stainless New Vaquero with all the paperwork, box, lock, even the yellow empty cylinder indicator thingie. Of course, the ".44 Special" marking had a little to do with it.

I like it just fine, and normally shoot .22's during the off-season "shoot what you brung" matches, but there will undoubtedly be people 4 years from not who still don't have centerfire guns, and even some that do, who will argue, "It's been OK for the past four years, why not now?" Well, it's a bit early to tell. Like a lot of folks, due to the snow & cold, I've only been to one match this year, so...

Sure, if they stick with it and don't go back to playing Bingo at the Legion Hall on Saturdays because they can't use their .22's anymore.

I can see people getting into this game with .22's, then, IF things return to some semblance of normalcy 2-4 years down the road, being told they can't use them anymore and getting bent out of shape because they suddenly need to spend $2000 for two centerfire sixguns and a rifle to keep going when "Everybody's been fine with us using these for the past 4 years". Unavoidable. Oh well.

Lead is ridiculously priced anymore, but folks are apparently paying it. Today's spot price is $1.06/pound, but $2.00 is more the norm on the secondary market. I had a lead on a ton +/- a couple weeks ago, and turns out the seller was trying to get $3.00. I laughed and offered $1.25. He laughed, and we parted ways. At $2.06, J. Frank Norfleet's price above is actually pretty good in our current world, especially for pure lead and shipping included.

They're not hard to find, you just need a wheelbarrow of money!

I thought you had him there! I put the springs in a small bench vise and draw file them thinner - not narrower, thinner. Break the sharp edges, polish, reinstall. I had one break a few years ago and replace it with... maybe a modified '73 spring? I don't remember, but it worked. I broke an ejector spring on one of them sometime back too, and that was kind of hard to find.

I have a saddle ring carbine made sometime prior to 1923, a 24" octagon made probably in 1906, and a 22" heavy round barrel made in 1904. They all needed a little work when I first acquired them, but no problems since. Love those Marlin .38-40's!

I'd go ahead and load it, BUT, and there are people who will argue this, I've found Pyrodex to be much more corrosive than anything else. When I have it, all I use it in is shotshells. After a match, clean the gun well, then check it the next day... and the next, til you're satisfied there is no rust spotting appearing.

I've heard that one a lot, and I always say, "This is absolutely the last place you want to come to".

Mark the BP ones so they don't end up in the 1911. BP in .45 acp is legal for all the black powder categories, except Frontiersman, of course, cuz they don't fit in a percussion cylinder.

You know you can shoot .45acp in CAS, right? Just not in Classic Cowboy.

It's a pretty open border... I once walked about 3/4 mile up into Canada on a hunt north of Yaak, MT, carrying a rifle and wearing a revolver on my hip, without realizing what that 30' wide clear cut was. There was a gravel road on the other side of a creek in the bottom of a shallow valley where I finally realized I was in a *foreign country*, turned around, and went back to the states.

The Governor signed it into law today, with most provisions effective immediately and taking full effect June 1st.