Three Foot Johnson

Twenty three below this morning, and more snow this past week than we had all winter last year. Wind chill temps in other parts of Montana approaching fifty below.

The "belt fed" Mitchell mags were the only 50 rounders I ever tried that worked reasonably well, but the plastic tab on the cover was easily broken off. Ruger or Butler Creek steel lip mags for 25 rounders.

I read about CAS in some publication or another 'bout 20 years ago, asked around and found a match, and went and watched and asked a bunch of questions. I already had some suitable shotguns, and a pair of 4 5/8" .45 Blackhawks, one blue and one stainless. I went to one of the local toy stores and bought a 24" stainless Rossi '92 .45 Colt, and attended the next match with the new '92, the Blackhawks, and a 12g Rossi Overland hammer coach gun.

I've went through several hundred thousand rounds in my life, and can't recall having a primer failure with a reload with ANY brand of primer that could be directly attributed to the primer. Other folks have posted here about having X% failures with XXX brand primers and "I'll never use them again", but I'm inclined to believe there were circumstances involved other than a "bad primer".

Our friend and fellow shooter, Michael Phillips aka Two Fat Phillips, passed away November 26. Although a new member here, he was a very avid and knowledgeable gun enthusiast, and loved Cowboy Action Shooting. He will be missed. Obituary

I don't think there's any such thing as a Gen 1 G23. Pretty sure all Gen 1's were 17's and 19's.

I live off the pavement aways and I don't see my cats from March to December. Last year, 9 of 'em showed up out of the woods when it got cold. This year, only 1 so far. I'm kind of a softie and build a small insulated shelter for them several years ago, and put out a heated water dish and store-bought food when they show up.

There they are! Many thanks!

I've seen shotgun hammer "blanks" somewhere in the past, but can't find any such thing online now - rough cast hammers you could order with a specified throw range and no hole. I recently bought a MASSIVE New Ithaca Gun/NIG 10g that has the wrong hammers on it, and need to replace them. The ones that are on it strike the firing pins at a severe downward angle, don't properly line up with the firing pins, and rebound too far - at rest, they are a full half inch from the firing pins. The right side fires reliably with primed cases, but the left side only ignites the primer about one in three times on the first attempt.

Are you kidding me? Powder that you don't have an immediate use for is just poured out and disposed of?? Coincidentally, I hadn't used 2400 in several years myself, but had two or three pounds on hand. I have an SMLE and an 1891 Argentine and decided to give BAMM a try, and 2400 works great. If I have powder on hand that I no longer use regularly, I'll make a use for it!

Dang, that's a good buy. Shipping?

Yep, usually 0 or 00 gets you a real live person on the line... in Pakistan, of course.

Boxes for every cartridge are marked with a Sharpie, ".44 SPL" (or whatever) in one corner, and a letter in the other, then a tag that just lists the load & bullet. The rest of the details that I consider pertinent to that box of ammo are in a reloading logbook.

I think I currently only have three 1873's; two .44-40's and a .38-40. The .38-40 is 20", and the two .44-40's started out as 24"ers, but I cut ~ 3 5/16" off them - as far back as I could and not have to re-cut the rotary dovetail, so they must be just over 20 5/8" now. When I started this game, I thought I'd prefer the longer barrel, but the longer I played, the better I liked the shorter barrels, so out came the hacksaw, square, and draw file!

I dump 'em in a big Dillon primer flipper, pick up the ones that are the right way, then flip the tray over and get the rest of them. Maybe marginally faster than shaking the tray to get 'em all right the first time, maybe not.

A pair of 1895 Nagants, a Taurus Thunderbolt or a Spencer rifle, and an NEF Pardner 20g shotgun.

I like the Warden's idea - shoot all three... at the same match! Three years ago, I shot a 6 stage match at the Sun River Rangers range with not only different guns every stage, but every one was chambered for a different cartridge. I didn't cheat by using .44 spl in a .44 mag or .38 in a .357 either - I shot .44 spl in a dedicated .44 spl, and .38 in a dedicated .38 chamber. Also 6 different shotgun gauges, using .410 and 28g with the MD and posse's consent - .410, 28, 20, 16, 12, and 10. Twenty four guns, eighteen different, dedicated chamberings, and six different gauges. And I finished with one miss. Oh well. If you can't be fast, be the class clown.

Get the Marlin.

A LOT of us started with a '92 because they're inexpensive, and a lot of us still shoot one. Sure a Marlin, '66, or '73 is a faster action, but the vast majority of us will never, ever be able to outrun a '92. I started out with a stainless 24" Rossi .45 Colt, and have owned nine others, seven of which I still have - all were/are Rossi's, except for one Browning B92 .357. The Browning wouldn't feed .38's unless the bullet was seated way out to approximate the length of a .357, so I sold it and bought two Rossi .357's instead. They've never hiccuped with either .357's or .38's. The rest are four .44-40 round barrel carbines and a .44 mag round barrel carbine. I found the .44 mag brand new in the box at Chestnut Ridge Supply in Pennsylvania two years ago for $397, shipped - couldn't pass that up. Like Lefty Dude, it's usually not far away when I'm out spraying weeds, fencing, cutting firewood, calving, or whatever. As previously mentioned, if you go with a Rossi '92, at the very least you should probably replace the ejector spring.

I use a pair of Pro-Melts I bought in the mid-80's, one for pure lead and one for alloy, so 30 years of casting and no problems.