Nostrum Damus SASS #110702

For what it's worth, I shoot a Uberti 1866 45 Colt rifle too, and love it. And the brass on mine has been cleaned, of course, but hasn't been polished in 20 years and has that classic fantastic dull yellow patina. With all of those mods already done, this is a great deal.

That's a cool set with real "authenticity" -- I wish I was just a few ... ahem .. cough cough ... sizes smaller ....

Cap't Rudy's post is a good one, too, and reminds me of the time it was clear to me that I had to get all of the firearms out of my father's house. As I said, he endured the horrors of Parkinson's, including dementia for a few years at the end. One day a few years back I offered to take him to a gun show but only if he used a walker. Of course he refused the offer, still saying that he could walk when he clearly could not. I said the offer was non-negotiable, so we didn't go! But then he blurted out "do you want my Mauser?" "What Mauser, Dad?" He couldn't remember what kind of Mauser, nor when he got it, where he got it, what he paid for it, from whom he got it, even roughly how long he had it ... in short, zippo. He told me to go to a closet and in the back I'd find it and I could have it if I wanted it. My jaw dropped open when I picked up a low 4-digit serial number Swedish M96/38 that looked for all intents and purposes as it did the day it left Carl Gustafs Stads Gevärsfaktori in 1939 after its arsenal refurb. That was when the little light bulb went on over my head ... he had no idea what guns were in the house. Why the idea of the Swedish Mauser popped into what was left of his brain that day will always be a mystery. Fortunately, over the next several months, he allowed me and my sons to find and remove all of his guns from the house, and his bayonet collection, too; he knew that his shooting and collecting days were over, if nothing else. His wife was greatly relieved by all of that.

The Great Circle of Life (and Death): our parents become our children, and we become their parents. Over and over, ad infinitum.

My father couldn't control his legs well enough to walk anymore, but insisted that he could control them well enough to drive as long as his wife rolled him in his wheelchair to the car door and helped lift him out of the chair and into the driver's seat. It was ridiculous.

I didn't shorten his life (Parkinson's did that), but I did extend the lives of his neighbor's kids. It was a terrible fight just the same. When both he and his wife threatened me for caring, I did what had to be done and reported him to DMV using the procedure DMV set up specifically to deal with this situation. DMV reads the sworn statement on the provided form, signed by at least two family members (it was me, my sister, and my firefighter son), and then they call the person in to take a road test. If the person doesn't show up for it, the DL is automatically revoked. And that's how it went down. And I KNOW me, Sis, and Son did the right thing; the 100% correct and responsible thing to do. I would not have been able to live with myself if he ran over and killed a family while I dithered.

Of course if you cannot do an activity safely (both to yourself and others) and you cannot tell the difference between "safely" and "not safely," then it is time for others to step in and make that call for you. Dealing with an elderly parent who has no business getting behind the wheel of a few thousand pounds of rolling death metal is the classic situation many of us have had to handle, and it can get plain old ugly. When my late father's wife said "but he only drives locally" my response was "that's great, he'll only kill the neighbors' kids."

Doctors know that if you quit your outdoor hobbies and sit on your butt all day watching old Westerns, you'll get even sicker, faster, and they'll make even more money on you and your insurance. THAT SAID, however, "unsafe at any speed" does remind me of my own doc's advice after I recovered from a disastrous surfing accident in which the entire right side of my ribcage was crushed with 20 fractures (it took a few years to fully recover). Doc said "no more surfing." My wife said that even if another wave didn't kill me, she would kill me if I ever surfed again. Point well taken. The same doc said "no more bicycle riding -- any fall will shatter your ribs again and might kill you this time," so I gave up bike riding too. But give up shooting? No way. And I'm stronger today and have better stamina than before the accident, and do much more adventurous and strenuous hiking and hunting adventures. You are the boss of you (well, the wife gets a vote); do what you feel you can do safely.

Abilene, just remember that Uberti didn't ever use the hardest steel for its screws -- be careful not to bugger them, which is all too easy to do. Personally, I replaced every screw on my 20-year old Uberti 1866 with a complete set of hardened screws from VTI, and have been very happy with them. The original barrel band screw had been so badly messed up by the previous owner that I had to drill it out in order to replace it with a perfect hardened steel screw.

There are so many other great ways to spend quality time with my wife, I don't need to go shopping with her. In fact, our together time is all the better for the time we spend apart doing our own things. She shops or does other "her" stuff while I reload, or clean guns, or do some gunsmithing, or other "me" stuff. I don't regret it and neither does she; in fact, she'd much rather go shopping without me.

That's true, too, and all of my liquids are in a tray as well.

I don't like going shopping at all, period. I shop at the grocery store only because I like to eat once in a while, and I have to say that curbside pickup of groceries during lockdown was totally awesome. It is even worse when I have to go with someone else who is shopping, and much much worse if they like shopping.

I use these basic cheapest plastic squeeze bottles I got on Amazon: Axe Sickle 400 mL Plastic Squeeze Squirt Condiment Bottle for Ketchup Salad Dressing Mustard Olive Oil, Set of 3. $7.99 for three. I've had no problem with them. I've got Hoppes No. 9 in one, full strength Ballistol in the second, diluted Ballistol in the third.

UGH ... LKB would have picked it up with the bullets yesterday ... I think you forgot I was interested if the first taker passed on it.

That's a great deal for someone!

Robyn, check your email spam filter -- I sent you email last night, as requested.

Sending PM about the rest of the bullets and stuff. TRIED TO PM, IT SAID YOU CANNOT RECEIVE MESSAGES. ODD.

According to one recent article: "The Air Force has tried to retire the A-10 for more than a quarter-century. The service has consistently argued that the A-10 cannot survive on the modern battlefield and that A-10 funds are better invested in newer planes such as the F-16 Fighting Falcon — and, now, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Under pressure from the A-10's fans in Congress and the military, the US Air Force is keeping the planes, for now anyway, seeking to manufacture new wings for more than 100 A-10s. This will ensure that at least 280 aircraft will have the structural improvements necessary to keep a viable force of A-10s in the Air Force's inventory." The author continues: "Against low-tech enemies with poor air-defense weapons such as ISIS or the Taliban, the A-10 is still a capable platform. Against other, more modern threats such as Russian or Chinese air defenses the A-10 cannot survive on its own." That may be true, but the A-10 was never intended to fight "on its own." US warfare doctrine was, and still is, to pair A-10s with US Army Apache attack helicopters in a so-called Joint Air Attack Team (JAAT) to kill advancing Soviet armor. JAAT doctrine called for Apaches to suppress enemy air defenses, identifying and killing threats to the A-10. Suppression of ground-to-air defenses was always necessary before sending in the Warthogs to destroy ground armor.

If I had to watch one more Western before departing for good, and wasn't permitted to do anything else (which is what I think the OP was asking), it might be something more personally meaningful, like Unforgiven.

18" is legal minimum. I cut mine to 18 1/4. Make sure you know how ATF measures barrel length, then measure twice (using their method), cut once.

I read so many posts here and on other forums about the difficulties and trials and tribulations of folks trying or succeeding or giving up buying and selling at auctions these days. I buy and sell a fair amount, so I think I know what I'm talking about. Yes, buying commodity items like primers and ammunition via auction is not the best use of your money, unless you move up into near-commercial quantities (with corresponding prices) to weed out the newbies, shills, and casual bidders. A good example is buying powder. You will overpay for a pound or two of anything on any auction site today, but if you only bid on 16-lb or larger lots, you'll do just fine, generally -- you will have no trouble selling whatever you don't need or want to the rest of your club members at your cost per pound and everyone will be happy, or at least relatively happier than had you paid $80-100 per pound of anything plus HAZMAT fees Likewise, if you are a collector and are looking to acquire truly rare items, you probably know at least some of the other serious bidders who share your collecting passion, and everyone can easily spot when a shill (or an agent for an undisclosed buyer with WAY TOO MUCH money and WAY TOO LITTLE common sense) enters (and leaves) the bidding room. For everything else, while buying "regular" items has certainly gotten more expensive, and a LOT more caution about potential fraudsters is absolutely needed if you are going to deal with individual sellers, persistence generally pays off in my experience. Stick with the commercial auction houses -- any of the hundreds of them all across the country. (GunBroker used to be good but is now the home of shills, noobs, and fraudsters, so a great deal of extra caution is required. These days I prefer combo internet/live auctions instead of "internet only" ones because you know the item actually exists and that you'll get it if you win when it is auctioned off live, by a real human, with other real humans in the room.) Just bid the maximum amount you are comfortable paying (don't forget about the auctioneer's vig, sales tax, and a sometimes outrageous shipping charge, plus your receiving FFL's charge if necessary) and many times you'll miss it, but on other occasions you'll win and pay less than you thought you would need to pay. And every so often, you'll win an auction for what seems like an impossibly, shockingly low price, and the item will be just as good or even better than you hoped or expected it would be. That's been my experience over the past 10 years or so. Recently, I bought a Browning B725 Sporter 12 ga O/U in a custom transit case and an older Belgian Browning (FN) High Power Safari Grade .30-06 that both turned out to be basically NIB even though the sellers wouldn't say other than "very nice used condition" -- which was very honorable of them -- and both were won for far below "market price." And most recently, I had another truly extraordinary auction win for an exceptionally rare item that I won for less than a third of the low end of its pre-sale estimate, after all expenses. While there was a ton of pre-auction interest and bidding, no one but me showed up on the day of the live auction -- I have no idea why -- so my opening bid of someone else's pre-auction high bid (which was just high enough to clear out the jokers) plus $250 was the winner. Go figure! YMMV.

And while I think the doll's head always serves an intended function, even if you assume that it doesn't do all that much under normal shooting conditions, what would happen when that one shell that you accidentally double-charged is fired and the chamber is enormously over-pressured? Impossible, you say? I won't bet my face or eyesight or life that I will never accidentally make that mistake, even though I've loaded thousands and thousands of 12 gauge shell and not made it yet. I've had a few duds that were primed but I didn't charge at all, so I can't say it will never happen that I would double-charge a hull when reloading, and fail to notice when inserting the wad, or shot, or during crimping. Sure, it isn't at all likely, and the error would require a number of failures on my part, but I never say never and act accordingly.

Around the house, under the porch, yes, that's a different matter entirely, though the fewer snakes you have, the more rats, gophers, etc. you'll have -- pick your poison, so to speak. Out in the wilds, particularly in designated reserves, WMAs, SNAs, etc., is another thing and the snakes there should be left alone when possible, IMHO. I was in Brazil a few years ago with my wife and some other folks, all on horses riding out in the wildlands. One of the horses was snake-bit on its face when the horses stopped to graze for a minute. Our gaucho took the rider on his horse, removed the saddle and all tack from the stricken horse, and we left her out there to die, which she did overnight. We came back the next day to see maybe two dozen or more vultures feasting on the carcass. It is all just nature's way, though it was sad to see that beautiful mare dying and dead.

I generally agree that bullets are more effective at stopping a snake, and you don't need to get nearly so close to make a kill shot. However, I don't see any reason at all to take a "long range" shot at a snake. Just avoid them -- they are part of the ecosystem just the same as every other plant and animal out there, and 99.99% of them won't bother you if you don't bother them. Killing a snake might seem like a macho thing to some; to me, it is pointless and done only in true self-defense. In fact, when I hunt in the NWRs it is specifically forbidden unless in true self-defense, and the wardens are serious about it and repeatedly remind the hunters to leave the snakes alone.

Let me know if you don't find what you're looking for. I may have a spare box of loaded 357MAG shotshell ammo I could part with. I load it every other round in my Colt Trooper when hunting in snakeville, which is pretty much everywhere here in Texas. The alternating other three rounds are Buffalo Bore's HEAVY 357 MAG OUTDOORSMAN - 180 gr. Hard Cast LFN-GC. That said, diamondbacks are harmless; if you don't bother them, they won't bother you. Cottonmouths, though can be "needlessly aggressive" as a friend of mine said, and they occasionally WILL come at you for no reason at all. We avoided this "inquisitive" little fella on Sunday ...