Three Foot Johnson

Install a Sigurd/Galloway trigger, stick it in a Vedder Pocket Locker curved holster, and the LCP Max is about as perfect as it gets.

This isn't quite right, but it's pretty close to the old Winchester bullet and I already had the mold. Lyman 200 grain 358315 over 3.0 grains Unique - works well in my 5" Victory.

Not sure about the handguns, but I think my first CAS guns were a 7 1/2" .45 Blackhawk, a 7 1/2" .44 Super Blackhawk, a 12g Rossi Overland hammer shotgun, and a 24" stainless Rossi M92 .45. The Rossi Overland is the only one of the four I still have.

The Gyrojet shows no sign of ever having been fired. They came with six rounds, and it had six rounds with it when I bought it from a local shop ten years ago. The Liberator has been fired - I made up five .45 acp's with a round ball and just enough powder to poot it out the muzzle. The ball would hit the plywood target butt 15 yards away and bounce off. I also have the original cartoon picture instruction sheet it was packed with, a much more scarce item than the pistol. The Expendables .45 was a limited run from Uberti that was a "west coast exclusive". They were listed by Impact Guns on their web site, but never actually received any to sell. The only place they were ever available was Sportsman's Warehouse in the western part of the US. Production numbers are generally considered to be around 130 units, but I once emailed Uberti/Benelli USA and inquired - their reply was "about 250", but who knows. Somebody at the service desk read the email and said, "Hey Joe, how many of those goofy Stallone guns were made"? "Hell if I know, 250 maybe". I came across the .38 S&W pink cero-coated H&R 925 on Gunbroker about ten years ago, and it wasn't selling, so I made an offer.

Yeah...

From '75-'78, I was a Navy Aviation Electrician's Mate at NAS Whidbey Island, Washington. One day the chief came into the shop and said, "There's a qualification class at the range this weekend if any of you broke d*cks want to go" I signed up and that's how a shore based E4 Navy electrician ended up with two gedunk ribbons to pin on his dress blues.

This was "temporary" 32 years ago.

In addition to the old style Vaquero hammer, they also came with the star textured "Dooley Gang" grips.

Gunbroker - 1103345399 1101961333

In "Gangs of New York", Bill the Butcher's gang was The Federation of American Natives, based on a real political group of the era.

I don't care, just give me a bag of them. And a small Diet Coke.

It would be May 1955 for me... and my folks were at Fort Ord... Dad got out of the Army and they came home in January 1956, then I came along in February. I've had to live with the shame of being "Made in California" all my life.

Back in 2004, they made a convertible Vaquero in .32 H&R mag/.32-20 in very limited numbers... something like 250 - the auction description says about 230. Other sources vary, but regardless, there weren't many of them. There's one on Gunbroker right now, and with the scarcity of this model, I'm rather surprised it's been through several re-listings without a single bid. 1101963317

It is customary for an officer to initiate a salute to someone who has been awarded the Medal of Honor. I think there are only three currently on active duty, but in their fatigues, dungarees/NWU, or in the case of the Air Force, their plush bathrobe and slippers, how do they tell?

I've read the 1897 was originally designed for 2 1/2" shells, and I've read it was originally chambered for 2 5/8" shells. You'll even find some folks who say the chambers were 2 9/16" early on. Other sites, including The Winchester Arms Collectors Association have many references that state the '97 was specifically designed for 2 3/4" smokeless shells from Day One. Others say the 2 3/4" chambers weren't standardized until 1931... or 1937... Others will argue the discrepancy is due to the length of the fired hull with a roll crimp being shorter than a fired hull with a folded star crimp. I really don't get that one - 2 3/4" is 2 3/4", no matter which crimp is used. ... who knows.

@Crusty has a '97 like that...

I ain't much of an '87 shooter, but I used it in a WB match once... half the posse went to lunch while I was shooting a stage. I'll stick to a Model 12.

That screw is easy to remove with a ball end Allen wrench with no other disassembly required.

I'm pretty sure what's happened is folks have pulled over on the highway and shot at it with their .30-06's and whatnot, or maybe even a club member who came out to sight something in and didn't realize they weren't supposed to use jacketed bullets. Several years ago, there were three managers from Sportsman's Warehouse where I worked who asked to come out and use my personal range. I was working the day they came out, but made it very clear my Cowboy Action plates were for low velocity lead bullets only... they couldn't resist, and guess what? A 7mm Remington mag will punch a hole clear through a 1/2" steel plate at thirty yards. Several holes, actually. And blast an impressive crater in 5/8" plates with cracks in the craters you can see daylight through. Now that's bad enough, but these three knotheads also set a bunch of glass beer bottles in the weeds at the edge of my lawn, shot them, and made no attempt to hide what they did or clean up the broken glass. That was the beginning of the end of my SW job. It's the only job I've ever been fired from.

It's not an external mod, so a Model 97 thusly modified is legal in both Cowboy Action and Wild Bunch, while the Model 12 is only legal in Wild Bunch. I think any main match Cowboy Action shotgun is now legal in Wild Bunch, plus the Model 12 and IAC 93/97. Main match .38/.357 rifles are now legal in WB too, but the .25-20, .32-20, .32 H&R mag, .327 Federal mag, and .56-.50 are still Cowboy Action only. (edit) PWB beat me out by two seconds.

How did they decide who made the sammiches, draw straws or something?

Our 500 yard buffalo, with the shooting position marked by the red star. This is shot with Single Shot/Buffalo Single Shot, as outlined in the Shooter's Handbook. I've walked up to it several times scrounging lead, but never measured it. It's probably about half size, depending on what you call half size... if it's half as tall and half as long as a real buffalo, that's actually one quarter size... let's compromise and call it one third size. Side match "long range" targets are going to be closer and larger than long range targets in a dedicated long range match, like the Quigley shoot here in Montana. The reason being it's the main match at those shoots, and they put a lot more time, effort, money, and dedication into it, while to most of us Cowboy Action shooters it's just, well, a casual side match - we need bigger targets, lol. I see lots of side match shooters who have only the vaguest idea where their bullet is going to impact, and only land two or three on this buffalo target, sometimes not even that. I think a 2' plate at 250 yards wouldn't be overly large or overly far for lever action rifle cal. But, as you pointed out, distance and target size can vary greatly from club to club. Some clubs, with limited distance for their long range targets, will put up progressively smaller plates all at the same distance. Most folks can put their first three rounds on the big plate, then three rounds at the medium plate weeds a few of them out, then four rounds at the smallest plate. Ties are broken by a sudden death shoot off, time, or longest string of consecutive hits. One shooter at a time on the line is very time consuming, so it's common to see four to six shooters lined up, maybe more as at the Quigley shoot. Shooter 1 shoots, the spotters call it, Shooter 2 shoots, the spotters call it, and so on. By the time it gets back to Shooter 1, they've had sufficient time to use their blow tube, make a sight setting, whatever, and they're ready to touch off their next shot.

Mine did not group well with 150's, but I had some Hornady 168 grain HPBT's on the shelf, so I tried them over 47.0 grains of IMR-4895/CCI-200 and they performed wonderfully. I think the load data came from a Garand page in a Hornady manual.

CMP, service grade Springfield, May 1945, 1+/1+ Cute little things.

I did a quick Google search, and it looks like he still lives here in the Helena area. I was just discussing this with another former manager who worked there at the time and asked if he remembered what the signing bonus was - I just tossed $10,000 out there - he's pretty sure it was $25,000.