Three Foot Johnson

I sold both my X-frames a couple months ago, along with a few hundred pieces of brass, dies, and shell holder. A few days ago, I found another 80 cases buried on my loading bench, then today I was sitting there looking at them and thought... "Don't I have another .500?" Yeah, I do, a .500 barrel for my .45-70 NEF Handi rifle. So now what do I do, sell it, or buy dies/shell holder?

Had a Norinco, worked over by both Coyote Cap and Lassiter, but it takes some time and dedication to learn to run one smoothly, and I didn't use it often enough to learn. I bought it in 2011, and finally sold it to a dedicated '87 shooter last year who wanted a backup.

Yep, as long as it will chamber, you're golden.

No filler - the bullet is seated on the powder, and a crimp isn't necessary with black powder. Some long range BP shooters even claim accuracy is better without a crimp.

I just picked this ASM .38-40 up from Gunbroker, but haven't stepped outside to try it yet. It's supposed to get up to 41 tomorrow, so I'll go out back and pull the trigger a few times. I've got a custom Ruger in .475 Linebaugh on a Bisley frame, and had another one in .45 Colt a couple years ago, but calling the Ruger style a Bisley is a stretch - it's kind of a hybrid somewhere in between.

Deep seated 405 grain cast bullet over 40 grains (volume) black or sub. Plenty good enough for Plainsman distances, and surprisingly accurate in my H&R. I probably put a Walter's Wad between them too... I'd have to go read my reloading notes.

Here it is, 1:00 am, and I just finished watching it. Intriguing... *SPOILER ALERT* In the end, I was expecting the book to be changed again, and Al & Kristen would see the picture of Charles & Laura and realize things were right with the world... but, of course, Charles had never met Al and Kristen, him and Laura being long dead by that time... or did he... there is a feeling that Kristen recognized him in the book at the end... When the conductor told him it was his last trip and he had to choose, were previous timelines permanently erased, or did Charles, Al, and Kristen retain their memory of events...? Is there another twist at the end? Is the kid Al's or Charles's?

I bought a repro 1861 Springfield some years back, and a 500 grain cast Lyman 58 cal Minie (575213), plus another no-name brass 450 grain mold, are too large to push down the bore without a ramrod and a small rawhide or plastic hammer, so I turned out a sizer and pushrod to fit my RockChucker press. The die came out just a tad large, and after a couple shots w/o swabbing, the bullet takes a little encouragement to get down the barrel. A machinist I'm not, but stuff like this isn't that hard, so maybe I'll make another one a couple thousandths, smaller... maybe .005"... whatever works. In my experience with two different hollow base Minie designs, they are a royal PITA to cast.

There's a one-man organic egg producer up north of me who has his eggs priced at $1.29 ea.

A 2 3/4" roll crimped shell is the same length as a 2 3/4" star crimped shell... sort of. The length of the shell is measured with an empty/fired hull, not the overall length of a loaded shell, so they're not any shorter unless you cut them shorter. We cut them shorter to get rid of the existing folds of the star crimp, because those folds make it harder to get a nice clean roll crimp, so we're making 2 1/2" shells in the process... or whatever length is needed. A loaded roll crimped 2 3/4" shell probably ends up measuring slightly longer than a star crimped 2 3/4" shell. I also make little 1 3/4"ers, like the Aguila mini-shells, for my Mossberg Shockwave to get nine shots out of it. For CAS, the only real practical advantages to cutting a quarter inch off to make shorter shells are if you have a shotgun with a 2 1/2" or 2 5/8" chamber, or using one or two in your Wild Bunch '97 in order to get six in the magazine. I've also modified a Lee Load-All to load 2 1/2" shells with a star crimp.

OK, you and Wrangler.

I use a piece of 3/4" pipe cut to about 2 3/8 - 2 7/16" with a piece of wood glued in the cap to make sure the hull is tight up against the end of the pipe and I only have to turn it a couple threads to tighten it up.

I use a 31-105C from Accurate molds. http://www.accuratemolds.com/bullet_detail.php?bullet=31-105C

20-25 is a new one on me - 25-20 maybe? There are a couple boxes of Remington .25-20 on Gunbroker for $4.50/round, plus shipping, and a couple more boxes of Winchester currently at $2.60/round, plus shipping, with 4+ days remaining. You can also form brass from .32-20 or .218 Bee. Hornady made a run of .218 Bee about five years back, but right now they're just as rare as .25-20 brass. For that matter, even .32-20 brass is non-existent at the moment.

There's one long-time shooter here who has used rifle cases and saddlebags since day one.

There are at least twenty "best" smokeless powders for .45 Colt CAS loads - find one that's available, and buy it.

... call one four oh, ring two and ask for Bob. I have an old Helena phone book in the basement, 1912 or so, and probably all of thirty pages, including the cover and advertisements, that has numbers from single digits to the same seven digit format we use today.

Two years and a month ago, I hit the jackpot at a garage/estate sale. My buddy picked up twelve pounds of Titegroup too, for the same $5.00/can.

That's kind of what I was thinking - I use Claybuster wads a lot, because they're cheap, and they have a Windjammer pattern with 8 petals, but I've never heard the term "feathered" to describe them before.

What's a feathered wad? @Texas Jack Black

Feel them out, answer their question with a question. "I've always wanted a little cabin in the Adirondacks, but that's probably a bit much, eh?"

I've used 12 grains of Red Dot and 7/8 oz shot almost from day one. When I started, I had never loaded shotshells before, so I asked another shooter I casually knew through his job, and he said, "I use 18.0 grains of Red Dot and 1 1/8 oz shot". I didn't know any better, and I'm pretty sure I still have a few left from the first boxes I loaded. Another long-time shooter here used 9.0 grains Red Dot for years - you could actually see the shot ball going downrange. Eventually, he must have gotten a wad or two stuck in the barrel because he bumped it up to 10.0 grains, and is still using that load today.

My game improved VASTLY when I took over the scorekeepers duties.

The scaled down Lyman Ideal was made for them by Chiappa, who also made the Half Pint for Taylors and the Little Sharps for Charles Daly. I think Pedersoli also built one they called the Little Betsy. I bought a Chiappa .22 locally in 2021. It came with a 3x Malcolm scope, but I put an MVA tang sight on instead. When they do turn up, they're not exactly cheap. Less than my Shiloh by a fair measure, but really not far removed from a full size Pedersoli (pictured). A Chiappa .22 went for $1280, shipped, about six weeks ago on Gunbroker, and a .44-40 for $1635, shipped. A Big Sandy/Dakota Arms Little Sharps, which were also made in .22 or .38-55, plus nine other cartridges, was just on Gunbroker for $3650. A shirttail relative of mine, Aaron Pursley, was one of the two founder/owners of BSLS, and yet I've only actually held one single rifle in my hands, a .38-55 owned by a Cowboy shooter here. They were completely hand made, finished, and engraved "in house", and I think total production was only around a hundred rifles, plus another handful after Dakota Arms bought the company.

I underwent electric cardioversion three times last year, but one of the sessions they zapped me twice, so only two sessions. So far, so good, but the chemical cardioversion drug they temporarily put me on afterward, amiodarone, about killed me, lol. It took a long time to recover from the side effects of that nasty drug. The second time I was converted was one of the most bizarre experiences I've ever had. I was wheeled into the procedure room, where there were about six people waiting. They had me roll onto my side to get the zap patch on my back, rolled back over and one was positioned on the front, the anesthesiologist put a mask on me, and plugged a big syringe of white knockout juice into the IV. I asked him if he wanted me to count backwards from 100 like they used to do. He said no, fiddled with the syringe for a second, asked me how I was doing, said he was going to adjust the oxygen mask, the doctor asked how I felt, the PA asked if I was doing OK, then they started wheeling me out of the room. I said, "Isn't this where you do the procedure...?" She said, "Oh, we already converted you, twice." There was absolutely no time gap, no distortion of reality, no realization of having "been under", no drowsiness, and I think I actually said, "Bullshit...". I pulled down the top of the gown, and sure enough, there was a ring shaped burn mark. (Not blistered or anysuch, just red like a sunburn)