I became involved in the shooting sports way, way back in 1980 or so. (Old fart alert!) Money was always in short supply, so I usually opted for surplus/used guns in order to stretch the budget. When dealing with older firearms, one has to be very careful when cleaning. All residue has to be cleaned out or else they will rust like crazy! Pay attention to all the nooks and crannies, even the magazines, or else a surprise may be found lurking there. Kind of like making sure to brush your teeth thoroughly, I suppose. Then, a few years after I started, Glocks made their way to US shores. Polymer ..read more

On my way to work. Gee, don’t I look serious ..read more

My yard is fenced, and I keep the grass trimmed short. No one has lived in the shacks to either side, and the foliage is not only poisonous, but tall. I was tossing the ball for the dogs the other day, and it rolled right up against the chain link. As the beasts wrestled to find out who was to have the honor of carrying the orb back to me for a repeat throw, I heard a rabid buzzing from right on the other side of the fence. Something just a few inches from the ball was not happy my dogs were there, and was letting their displeasure be known. An unseen creature, hidden in the tall grass, was ma ..read more

It’s a striped bark scorpion, very common around here. Not a particularly large example, but with a painful sting nonetheless. A quick stop at the local hardware store brings us this. A product specially formulated to kill scorpions. Never saw anything like this when I was living amongst the green fields of Ohio, but necessary now that I’m down in the dusty landscape of west Texas ..read more

It was October of 2020, and it was an average day here in west Texas. The sun was shining, the temperature was 80 F (27 C), and the breeze was pleasant. But that was soon to change. A mass of Arctic air was barrelling down from the north, bringing freezing rain and snow. The weather forecast predicted three days where the high temperature would barely claw its way above zero F (-18 C). The dogs and I were out in front of the shack, watching the front move in. It looked like a sharply cut mass of black clouds reaching back beyond the low horizon. I knew that the edge of the clouds was where the ..read more

I started my students off focusing on safe gun handling, firearm storage, marksmenship. You know, the bare basics. It was all I could do, all I had time for, and it used up what resources I could spare. I’ve always urged my students to seek out formal training courses, if they were able. Most, unfortunately, were not, either due to infirmity or lack of money. I just read an article in WIRED magazine, where they sent one of their reporters to Gunsite Academy for training. She described entering a shoot house, where the scenario was the rescue of a small child named Timmy who had been kidnapped ..read more

While waiting for Santa, enjoy what has become a holiday classic around here ..read more

ABC News has posted video of the shooting. A single male approached the White House on foot, openly carrying a gun in his hand! What in the world did that idiot think was going to happen? That he’d be invited inside for tea? As it is, I think the Secret Service treated him with the greatest of gentleness. They only shot him once, after all. The gun appears to be a Ruger Mk IV, the target model. This is a handgun chambered for the .22 Long Rifle cartridge. It is a rugged and extremely durable gun, and it is very useful for anything you might want to do with a handgun chambered in .22 LR. By t ..read more

Riots, murder, burning and destruction! People interested in self defense have taken note. Firearms and ammunition are tough to find nowadays. I was in the local big chain sporting goods store and decided to take a walk down the ammunition aisle. So sad, nothing but bare shelves. Oh, there were a few offerings. I managed to find 500 rounds of .22 Long Rifle, but it was bare lead bullets instead of the copper wash I prefer. There was a supply of 12 gauge shotgun shells, but they were loaded with 7 1/2 birdshot and so were unsuitable for self defense. Oddly enough, I also found several boxes o ..read more

James says check out the channel. Just a few songs right now, but if you subscribe you can brag to your D&D group that you joined early and so are cooler than all the rest of them ..read more