Three Foot Johnson

"Long range" differs greatly from range to range. One range I shoot LR side matches at has plates at three distances out to 500 yards (250,400,500, I think...) for single shot, and two distances for lever action rifle cal - 100ish and 250. Another range has three progressively smaller plates all set at 240ish, I think... Like High Spade, I also use a Legendary Frontiersman .38-55 with a Lyman #2 tang sight, which works fine for close up targets at one or two distances - I set the factory sight for 100 yards and the Lyman for 250, Easy Peasy. For more targets at differing ranges, I use a Marlin 1895CB .45-70 with an MVA Soule tang sight and a bubble level front globe. There is often a time limit, and referring to your sight notes, turning the sight up, getting back on target again, and shooting at 4 targets at 4 ranges will often eat up my ten minutes for ten shots before I can get them all off.

I won a Uberti Lightning twenty years ago at a match, didn't care for its small size, traded it off, and never thought about having a birdshead again. Then five years ago, I came across a pair of 3 3/4" Ruger birdshead .45 acp's, NIB and consecutively numbered, for such a ridiculously low price it would have been foolish to not buy them. I later found another one pretty reasonably priced, cuz ya gotta have an identical backup, doncha know, then a shooting buddy texted me one day about a fourth one on Guntrader just six miles down the road from me, so I ended up with two sets. I dressed 'em up with some new shoes, picked a pair to shoot, and have used them more than anything else for the past five years. I really like them.

One club I shoot at has a minimum of 6 shotshells per stage, with one of the six stages often set up for twelve or more.

Keepin' it simple -

Most folks seem to prefer the M12 over the '97 for Wild Bunch, but I know a few that tried them and went back to their '97's. I snagged this '59 model off Gunbroker in December '19 for $116. The seller listed all the bad things about it, and only two of us bid on it. The mag tube was dented enough in a couple places to prevent shells from going in, one of the end cap screws was missing, the action was gummed up with 60 years of gunk, the stock was speckled with blue paint, a small chip on the left side of the slide handle (cosmetic only, but repaired it anyway), the mag tube was held on with a piece of coat hanger wire twisted around it because it was installed 180 degrees off, the "action slide handle retaining spring" was missing (a completely non-essential part), and the barrel had a discernable bulge about 3" from the muzzle - I was going to cut it and install a new bead anyway, so no big deal. I spent a few hours one afternoon cleaning it up, cutting the barrel, working the dents out of the tube, etc. This was actually meant to be a backup to another one I purchased five months prior, a very nice former Bayside, TX police dept gun, but this ugly duckling has been my main match WB shotgun for five years now, with no problems. I had a key chain fob with three footprints on it, so I personalized it.

One of these Radom/Pioneer Arms coach guns sold on Gunbroker today for $2025 + $40 shipping.

About thirty years ago, a neighbor, who spends most of his spare time drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, and playing Keno at the local watering hole, was admiring a Makita 3/8" VSR drill I was using. He said it was a lot better than the ancient 1/4" Skil he had, and asked how much I paid for it. I told him sixty bucks (or whatever), and he said, "I'm going to the credit union tomorrow and borrow some money to buy one of these." He actually financed a drill.

The Ballad of Irving - there used to be a Youtube video some young boys made that was hilarious, but it seems to be gone now.

Cause of death was determined to be accidental drowning. The family also said she didn't know how to swim. Burial will be at the Fort Harrison Veteran's Cemetery next week. This is kind of odd - the tracker showed her path around the area, then into the river in an area below the bluffs accessible on horseback where it indicated she had taken the horse into the water where it walked in a few big circles close to shore then quit tracking. Maybe this wasn't known at the time, but it should have been on her recovered cell phone, so why in the world did they have us searching the land area for three days? Damaged phone or password protected maybe.

They expire? I don't see an expiration date on mine anywhere.

Pretty sure I could pull a few odds and ends out of the scrap pile behind the garage, rip a 2x4 off an old pallet, and make a single shot shotgun in an hour.

Most targets are cut with way too much empty space around the edges.

The body has been sent to the state crime lab in Missoula.

It's becoming pretty common for riders to put a GPS tracker on their horse or in a saddlebag, but it doesn't do a lot of good if the horse also has your cell phone when it runs off.

Her body was found in the Missouri two hours ago.

Some of you may have heard about this - four days ago, late on Friday afternoon, a young woman, Meghan Rouns, went horseback riding and turned up missing in a small "recreation area" a couple miles from me. Husband and family say she's very familiar with the area and has ridden there several times before. The horse was found, with her cell phone in a saddlebag, and her hat was found. The area is maybe two square miles, sparsely wooded, not particularly rugged at all, and surrounded by houses. We've searched or glassed every square yard, and there have been several helicopters flying grid patterns overhead. Yet, by Sunday, the sheriff's department said foul play had been ruled out. She's literally vanished, no body, no witnesses, so how did they come to that conclusion? The Missouri river borders the area to the north and has some bluffs that offer spectacular views, but in some places these bluffs drop off at a 100% grade about 450 feet to the river - horse and hat were found nearby, but not close to the very edge. After day one, I was pretty convinced that's where she must have ended up, and searchers have now shifted their focus to the river and Hauser Lake a mile downstream.

Night time temps have been in the mid-30's to mid-40's lately, but still "unseasonably warm" for October. I turn the heat on at night, and am getting a supply of firewood cut for the winter.

I did that mod to my .25-20 Classic about four years ago. I don't remember just where the tube came from, but it wasn't hard to find. Numrich's maybe...? I think I had to shorten it a little too - probably was for a 24" barrel.

The only 20 gauge lever shotgun I can think of is the Ithaca M66, and it's not really a lever action, per se - it's a single shot break open. It didn't come along til the 1960's either, so somebody might complain about that.

The stock looks much more usable than what Uberti puts on them today.

I've got two Lee Shaver Soule setups, and three MVA Soule's. Four have bubble level globes up front and one a globe without a level. There isn't really a whit of difference between these two. Kelley is also very good, but more expensive.

For several years, I've made a note of which guns I took to each match. This list is pistols only, but the .44 special easily came out on top. 44 spl 45 acp 45 Colt 38 spl 38-40 44-40 32 H&R mag 44 Russian 32-20 9mm 44 mag 357 mag 40 S&W - One time only, using .38-40/.40 S&W convertible Vaqueros

Walmart has them, between automotive and paint.

Two week bump.