Leaderboard

53 years ago at approx. 7:30 P.M. eastern time my beautiful bride and I got hitched. She did a good job of training me

Dalek ancestors.

So in re-reading this thread let me just say....I don't care who has the cheapest 9mm. I don't need any. That is the joy of reloading.

I have a feeling there's going to be a lot more of this in the near future.

I just picked her up today. Not the best picture, but I’m excited to have this little beauty. For now I’m mounting a Holosun HE515GM-Green dot on it. If I’m not crazy about the dot, I’ll probably move on to an Aimpoint or RMR on a mount. I’m going to keep this simple.

I bought 2 Swiss rifles off the Gunboards forums and I was wondering if anybody knew anything about them. https://imgur.com/gallery/dOBw5ex They are very well made, and the triggers are very nice. I haven't gotten to try them on the range yet, due to rain, but I have high hopes in the accuracy department. I didn't know if these were actually used as trainers for their military, or if they were more of novelties/ civilian marksmanship programs over there. I can't find much information on Google, as to when they would have been made, or how many were converted. All of the serial numbers are matching. There are no troop tags under the buttplates. And I can't find any import markings on them. The Sahli sight adjuster is incremented from 0-5. I'm not sure if that's in 10 meter increments or what. Here are what hi listed them as. G89 action to K31 by Ernst Frey, RF FP w/ new barrel & #18 Sahli sight adjuster G96 action to K31, RF FP and new barrel

Southwestern Shooters Supply was one of Interarms main retail distributors during the late 50's through the 60's and the GCA. Sam Cummings started providing a lot of his WWII surplus to them during the 50's, and continued to use them as his primary west coast distributor for many years. IIRC, Interarms eventually bought their operation out, effectively converting Southwestern into one of its own retail outlets ...

I just recently finished the first four books in the series, so they're still fresh in my mind. Like I said the resemblance to current events is down right scary. Deleting/ changing history, hating people and historical figures with claims of racism. PC run amok. Its all in his books and then some. There's a 5th book due out soon. I had planned to get it, now I'm kinda spooked and not sure.

If you don't already have that Holosun, EuroOptic has them on sale right now.

I thought I'd bring this thread back up as the craziness that is happening these days bears a huge resemblance to Kurt Schlichter's "People's Republic" series which I reviewed just a couple of posts earlier. I mean its absolutely frightening how Schlichter's fictional dystopian near future of liberalism gone crazy is coming to life all around us. Schlichter has always said that while his novels are fiction, they are also meant to be a warning of just what might happen. I fear he is right.

Imho and experience each shotgun can be quite unique as to which particular buckshot it patterns best with. I always take as large of a variety of buckshot as I can find with me to the range to pattern test a new shotgun. I generally test from 5 yards to 25 yards and keep notes. There are "Zones of Fire" (A-B-C) that were taught to me way back when, but essentially this means you need to be precise in your aiming and understand the opening of the pattern in your particular at various distance intervals. Best bet is to obtain professional training with someone such as Randy Harris @Cruel Hand Luke. Randy knows his stuff and is an excellent teacher and instructor. I think the shotgun is a formidable and excellent home defense choice when utilized in the proper context and environment. Shotgun wounds are some of the nastiest and most devastating GSW's I've treated. Federal Flitecontrol 12 g. seems to pattern well across the board. But most ammo, quality 12 g. included, is relatively scarce at the moment. I still have a bunch of old H132 Federal that patterns well in my old 590...but it's Vang Comped, so there's that.

A big can of that powerful long stream Wasp spray kept in the console works good. That stuff is nasty mean!!!

I love a happy ending.

A big can of bear spray, maybe. The typical key-chain pepper spray is just going to make them mad.

A standard Glock spring is flat wire. A friend has a Q5 SF and he said the stock spring is HEAVY. He said options are very limited for respringing with the stock guide rod. He has the ZR guide rod above and a 13 pound Glock spring. He was having trouble going back into battery and cured it with a Sprinco reduced striker spring (he really liked the way the gun felt with the 13). Another friend has a 13 on his SF and it locks up fine with the ZR guide rod. I would get a .250 diameter aftermarket steel guide rod (like either one above) that uses ISMI flat wire Glock springs and be done with it. I would buy a 13 and a 15 pound spring and go from there. One of those should be the ticket depending on your ammo, how far you’re throwing brass, and how the sights track.

This. Also, unless your video is uploading to the cloud in real time; I wouldn't count on it and your camera being there once this scenario is over.

Good for the armed citizen.

I’m a truck driver. A dash cam can hang your ass just as easily as it can save your ass.

Interesting thread. I think I'd try to do things in this order: 1. Avoid if at all possible. Call 911 2. Leave if possible. 3. If non-violent. Try to wait for the crowd to move on or police come. 4. If violent, use the vehicle as a battering ram to make room to escape. 5. Fire only if absolutely necessary. I've never really thought about a dash cam. But now, I do believe I'll look into it.

Depends on WHERE you are in the traffic. the first thing is to call 911 if for no other reason than to get it on record what is happening. If you are the first car then keep moving if you can. I'm not talking about "drive through the crowd in Charlottesville " style, I'm talking about just rolling through slowly enough not to do any undue harm if possible. But again this depends on the mood of the crowd. People chanting and waving signs and people throwing bricks are two different things. And if someone kicks your car or hits it with a bat that is still not necessarily justification to shoot them (yet). If it is obvious that they are "out for blood" then proceed as necessary. Drive around, through or over them if need be. If that is not possible and you have the option to "safely" wait it out then that might be the best option but again, once the crowd gets violent it is a LETHAL situation and the "disparity of force" is through the roof. Respond as necessary. This is not the time for "well I only carry my gun every now and then". And if a J-frame and the 5 rounds in the cylinder is all you carry you might want to reconsider that. Is there a time to get out of the vehicle? Yes. If you are stuck in the middle of the traffic and they are setting cars on fire then you are going to have to do SOMETHING. That something might be get out and run , get out and try to help others get out of their cars (think elderly folks who might need help) or get out, grab your rifle and make things very loud. Obviously that is a last resort but I'd rather have that option and not need to use it than not have that as an option. If you have a passenger (passengers) this might change things. Who is the passenger? Your wife? Your wife and small children? Your teenage age daughters? Your SF friend who just got back from a deployment to Syria and you are coming home from the range? All of these details matter and will color what you do and frankly what you are able to do. The best place to be is NOT THERE. So if you can avoid it then avoid it, if you can drive around it, then drive around it if not and you can drive through it do that. Worst case is having to get out and solve this on foot. I was in Raymond Mississippi at the Rangemaster Master Instructor class when the widespread nationwide rioting kicked off on the night of May 28. We all were aware of the news as the class progressed from Fri-Sun. Virtually all of us were visitors to the area and would all have to make our ways home Sunday night after class. My plan was to fill the car up before I left (I could make it all the way home on 1 tank of gas) , to simply stay on the interstate if possible, check in with friends along the way for a local reports of what was going on in their areas (I drove essentially diagonally through Alabama on 59 ) and to be ready to drive around or through any problems, and keep the AUG on the front seat for any potential problems that I could not drive around or through. People think you are crazy carrying a rifle and 7 mags with you until the rioting starts. Then you are a prophet.

David, there's nothing I can really add to this topic that will be of substance. But I do want to say that this is a very good thing to think long and hard on. I no longer have a full size truck, so I'd consider my options limited in the case of pushing another vehicle aside. In consideration of our ages and very limited physical mobility; staying put inside the vehicle as long as possible is primary. After getting out, or being forcefully removed(and that's the only way I see us exiting in this situation), I think adrenalin and panic mode would probably set in. I'm certain my wife would be screaming, and that would get me going as well. So eminent harm or injury would likely have me with a weapon in hand by then. I know that's not really the best thing, but to be truthful, that's likely what would happen with us. Nowhere near ideal, but at least I can face what my likely reaction would be. I'll be watching this thread closely, in hopes of learning how better to react. In an ideal world, this will never happen. Sadly none of us live there anymore.

This is a scenario where I'm glad I have dash cams in both vehicles. If they are just blocking the road and not threatening me I'm going to wait before just ramming a bunch of people. I'm not going to be the next Reginald Denny though. If it looks like they are going to do me harm then I'll do what I have to. I'm not going to get into specifics.

Depends on who's in the vehicle and perceived attitude of the mob. You said very angry, so... If that means they've got clubs at a minimum and are breaking windows and dragging people out... Get off the X. I make every effort to leave some maneuvering room between me and the car in front. If I've got to push another car out of the way or otherwise part the sea, so be it. I'll do whatever I can not to hurt anyone, but I'm getting my family out of there. If they're only beating on the cars with bare hands and making no attempt to enter the cars, then I'll do my best to keep cool and wait it out. Damage to my vehicle isn't worth hurting anyone.

Here's a better "play by play " of the incident...... https://americanhandgunner.com/the-ayoob-files/the-lessons-of-tim-gramins/ THE LESSONS OF TIM GRAMINS By Massad Ayoob Situation: Backup is racing to help you as you shoot it out with a heavily armed bank robber, but you’re alone for now and running low on ammo. Lesson: What’s on your person may be all you’ll have to fight with, so carry enough. Solid positions and aimed fire deliver fight-stopping hits … and knowing what you’re fighting for will make you fight harder. August 25, 2008. It’s a sunny and beautiful late afternoon in Skokie, one of the separately incorporated communities surrounding the city of Chicago, Illinois. Of Skokie Police Department’s 124 officers, about 15 are patrolling on the street during the three-to-eleven shift. Inside the Crown Vic Police Interceptor squad car of Officer Tim Gramins, the dedicated ISPERN radio — the Illinois State Police Emergency Radio Network, reserved for serious emergencies — comes to life. A bank has been robbed in nearby Northbrook. The suspect is a black male, average size, driving a white Pontiac. A witness has reported a possible plate number, from a series tracked to the city of Chicago. This puts Skokie in between. SPD units proceed to the Edens Expressway, I-94 South, hoping to interdict. Two Skokie units pull over a man and vehicle fitting the description but quickly determine he’s not the suspect they’re looking for. It is then Gramins spots a white Grand Prix, with a lone driver who fits the description. They make eye contact with each other, and Gramins recognizes an expression he has seen many times. He calls it “the ‘Oh, boy, here’s the police’ look.” The man floors his accelerator with a sudden lane change, and the chase is on. In Pursuit Hitting his lights and siren, Gramins radios in his situation. He knows other units will be responding, but has no way to determine how soon backup will catch up with him, particularly in late rush hour traffic. The suspect veers his getaway car across three lanes of traffic to hit the Touhy Avenue exit east, and then bangs a right onto Skokie Boulevard. In the powerful CVPI, Gramins expertly remains on his tail. The chase swerves onto Estes Street after a block, through the intersection of Keating, then right on Kilpatrick. And then, the fugitive springs the trap. Ambush! Here, in a quiet suburban neighborhood right out of a Leave It To Beaver rerun, Gramins sees his quarry slam on his brakes and come to an abrupt stop in the street. Action beats reaction: Gramins responds quickly but by the time his squad car has stopped it is only 15 feet behind the fugitive’s vehicle. The white car’s door pops open and out comes the suspect. Gramins sees a silver-colored auto pistol in the man’s hand as it rises over the steering wheel, coming out the door, and swinging toward him. As this is happening, training and practice send Gramins’ left hand across his torso to swiftly release his seat belt, and his right hand to unholster his GLOCK 21 service pistol. But Ray Maddox, a 37-year-old Gangster Disciple gang member who has sworn to kill the next cop who stops him rather than go back behind bars, gets the first shots off. Bam, bam, bam, bam! Gramins can hear and even count all four of them, can see Maddox running toward him firing one-handed. Now, though, the cop’s own gun is up in both hands and he fires right through the windshield, indexed on his target, tracking the gunman as he approaches the patrol car door, still shooting. Incredibly — perhaps, for Gramins, even miraculously — both men now run out of ammunition and go simultaneously to slidelock. Second Magazine Both combatants react instantly to the change in the situation. Maddox spins around and runs back to the Pontiac. Gramins explodes out the driver’s door of the squad car, seeking to escape the trap his vehicle has become, and runs between the cars to the right. He’s reloading on the run, ejecting the spent magazine, slapping in a fresh one, and closing the slide. At approximately this time in the gun battle, he is able to radio in: the suspect is out of his vehicle, shots have been fired and he (Gramins) needs help. The gunfire has captured the attention of the residents on this quiet street. A 12-year-old boy skateboarding on the sidewalk runs into his house and tells his parents, “There’s a police officer in the street being shot at, call 9-1-1!” Gramins will later tell American Handgunner, the boy is “the bravest kid I’ve ever known.” Gramins can hear the boy’s dad yelling to him like a cheering section, “Get him! Shoot him!” In the heat of the moment, Gramins has time to take some comfort in this. Reloaded, he charges the suspect, now on the other side of the vehicles. The officer fires as he goes. He will tell me later, “He (was moving) back toward my car. I don’t think he knew I was off to his left. I charged right at him, and ended up three feet away. I was shooting one-handed when I got close. As I ran toward him firing, I saw no effect.” Third Magazine Seeing his GLOCK at slide lock again, Gramins sprints to an angle where he can get his patrol car between himself and the gunman, who is still shooting at him but with a different pistol. Again the cop is reloading on the run, demoralized his gunfire has done nothing to stop his deadly attacker, and acutely aware he’s on his last magazine. Gramins is now to the right of their two cars, and he sees Maddox is now to the left of his patrol car, using it for cover and crouching down low. An intensively trained SWAT team leader, Gramins tries to use the technique LAPD SWAT employed to successfully neutralize the machinegun-armed suspect Matasureanu in the infamous North Hollywood bank robbery shootout of 1997: he points rather than aims his G21 and fires as he moves, trying to ricochet his bullets under the car and into Maddox’s legs to bring him down. The angle isn’t right, though, and he sees his bullets hitting his own car and front right tire. Time to change the plan, he realizes. Finale Gramins sees a tree between the sidewalk and the cars in the street. He dives prone behind it, and — trained on the precision rifle as a SWAT cop — realizes he now has the best cover and the most solid shooting position he has had since the gunfight began. Maddox has been popping up and shooting at him like a jack-in-the-box and then crouching deep, watching Gramins from under the car. The cop sees Maddox looking at him now from under the police car. Carefully, consciously focusing hard on his front sight, Gramins follows legendary Border Patrol shootist Bill Jordan’s advice (“Take your time, quick!”) and squeezes off three rapid but still carefully-aimed shots, holding on the would-be cop-killer’s head. On the third, Maddox collapses face down. He is no longer shooting. A large pool of blood begins to spread outward from the gunman’s head. Gramins keeps him covered. About a minute later, the first responding officers, Detective (now Sergeant) Barnes and Detective Mendez, arrive. Both are fellow SWAT team members. Gramins feels a sense of relief as the backups kick the downed antagonist’s gun out of his reach, and handcuff him. It’s over. Reconstruction will show from the first shot of the gunfight to the last, 56 seconds have elapsed. During this time 54 pistol shots have been fired, 33 from Gramins’ GLOCK .45, and 21 by Maddox from two pistols. Wound Assessment Raymond Maddox did not survive. Autopsy showed he had been hit by 17 of Gramins’ 230-gr. Speer Gold Dot .45 hollowpoints. Some had hit extremities, including upper limbs as the officer’s bullets tracked up the gunman’s arms while he was firing at the cop. But Maddox had also been hit in one kidney, both lungs … and the heart. All three of Gramins’ last carefully braced, precisely aimed shots had indeed hit the head, but two had smashed into his face and only the last had pierced the brain and ended the fight. Gramins did not emerge entirely unscathed. He caught a bullet fragment in one shin, and bullets going through the glass of the car had sent fragments into his face. He also suffered a significant hearing loss in his left ear, most likely due to firing 13 rounds from his .45 from inside the closed patrol car. He, at the hospital in a room adjacent to where the medicos were trying to save Maddox’s life, also had to hear a doctor angrily cry, “Why did the cop have to shoot him so many times?” If only the physician had known … The shooting death of Raymond Maddox at the hands of Officer Timothy Gramins was ruled a justifiable homicide. No lawsuit was filed. Gramins received multiple awards for his heroism in the encounter and was later promoted to sergeant. Weapon Assessment Both the would-be cop-killer and the officer who neutralized him were heavily armed. They had access to seven loaded firearms between them. Gramins deployed only one; Maddox used two. Maddox opened fire with a stainless steel 9mm auto which Gramins first thought looked like a Taurus copy of a Beretta, but turned out to be a 16-shot S&W Model 5906. It was recovered, empty, from the front seat of Maddox’s Pontiac, its last spent casing stovepiped where Maddox had dumped it as he grabbed his second weapon. It was a Bersa .380 pistol. The .380 was apparently hit and, unknown to the cop, rendered inoperable by one of Gramins’ .45 rounds near the end of the gunfight. Also in the front seat of the gunman’s car was an SKS semiautomatic rifle, fully loaded with a 30-rd. magazine, and in a box. At least one analyst has suggested Gramins’ charging toward Maddox while emptying the second magazine in his GLOCK kept the gunman from accessing the high-powered semiautomatic rifle. Gramins was told later Maddox’s weapons were tied to four homicides in the city of Chicago. Gramins had been carrying his primary sidearm, the 13+1 capacity GLOCK 21, with only 12 rounds per mag because he had found with his magazines, it was sometimes difficult to positively seat them loaded all the way up if the slide was forward. He had the two spare magazines on his duty belt, and also a 9mm subcompact GLOCK 26 backup gun in a holster attached to the Second Chance ballistic vest under his uniform shirt. A Remington 870 pump shotgun loaded with five 12-gauge slugs was racked above him inside the patrol car, and as a SWAT officer, he had an AR-15 in the trunk with several 30-rd. magazines. Like his opponent, he was never able to deploy any of the heavy artillery. Lessons There are many lessons to be learned from Tim Gramins’ incident, some more obvious than others. Carry enough ammunition to finish a worst case scenario fight. After this event, which has been widely publicized among law enforcement, Tim Gramins put his .45 in his gun safe and went with a 9mm. He told me, “We are allowed to pick our weapon. GLOCK, S&W, Beretta and SIG are authorized, and we have our choice of 9mm, .40 S&W, or .45 ACP, all with department issue Gold Dot ammunition.” His duty pistol is now the GLOCK 17, loaded to full capacity with 17+1 rounds of 124-gr. +P 9mm, backed up by 11 rounds of the same in his GLOCK 26, which of course can feed G17 magazines. A slim-line Safariland triple magazine pouch carries three more 17-rd. mags in uniform, and he carries two 33-rd. 9mm magazines behind the trauma shield of his ballistic vest. This adds up to 146 rounds on tap. A widely-circulated police article by our mutual friend Charles Remsberg made Tim famous in cop circles as the policeman who carries almost 150 rounds of ammo on his person. “I can carry a hundred rounds more ammo, and it only weighs a couple of pounds,” Gramins told American Handgunner. “Round count seems to be skyrocketing in police gun battles, police running out of ammunition. I don’t want to be in such position. I came close to it, with only four rounds left in my GLOCK 21.” The dynamic movement required to escape the kill zone kept Gramins from accessing either the shotgun in the squad car’s cockpit or the AR-15 in its trunk. One lesson this taught him: what you have on your person may be all you have to fight with once a fight goes mobile. Aggressive humans can soak up multiple lethal wounds and still continue homicidal action for surprising periods of time. People have taken multiple, massive wounds even from high powered rifles and shotguns, and stayed in the fight. Contrary to popular belief, a heart shot like the one Maddox sustained well before Gramins’ brain shot killed him does not necessarily guarantee the hoped-for “instant one-shot stop.” The medical journals devoted to treatment of trauma show multiple survivors of gunshot wounds to the heart, and forensic pathologists have recorded numerous cases of people who continued conscious, purposeful, sometimes successfully homicidal actions after being shot in the heart. Even if cardiac function is completely shut down, the recipient of the wound has up to 15 or 16 seconds of action left before blood pressure drops below the level it will no longer sustain consciousness, and not all wounds of the heart cause total shutdown. This appears to have been the case with Raymond Maddox in this shooting, who by the way had a “clean toxicology screen,” which showed no alcohol or drugs on board. Forensic pathologists tell us there is no post-mortem artifact for adrenalin dump, and even if there was, its effect on the given person experiencing it cannot be precisely predicted. This shooting appears to be a classic example. Mortal wounds are not necessarily instantly fatal. The study of gunfights is replete with cases of “men who were dead, but didn’t know it yet.” It was not possible to reconstruct exactly when Maddox took the cardiac hit, but it is absolutely possible he was up and running for almost a minute despite a .45 caliber gunshot wound to the heart before the final bullet to the brain short-circuited his central nervous system and ended the encounter. Training is critical! As a SWAT cop prior to this shooting, Tim had extensive experience shooting through barriers such as windshield glass, from both sides, and this stood him in good stead in the opening of the gunfight when he essentially “broke the ambush” by returning fire through the windshield from the driver’s seat. Extensive Simunitions-based “force on force” role-play had prepared him as best as possible for shooting a murderous criminal who was shooting at him. Know what you’re fighting for! The day of this shooting was the eighth birthday of Tim Gramins’ son. Prior to hearing the emergency call over ISPERN, Tim had been pondering when he could take some break time to buy his son the Star Wars game he wanted for his birthday. Throughout the gunfight, Tim was aware of his need to survive for his son and for the rest of his family. He credits this determination for seeing him through the deadly gun battle. The very term “gunfight” is really a misnomer: the guns don’t fight, the people do, and those who know what they’re fighting for have a powerful psychological advantage. Finally, the lost lesson of this incident seems to be the importance of aimed fire. At the end, from a solid prone position where Tim had his hardest “front sight focus” of the fight, was when three rapid shots to the head all struck the intended target, the last one “shutting off the computer” and bringing the death battle to a decisive close on the side of The Good Guy. The author wishes to thank Sergeant Tim Gramins and the trainers of the Skokie Police Department for the outcome of this shooting, and fellow police writers Chuck Remsberg and Dave Scoville for first spreading the valuable lessons of this life-or-death battle to the law enforcement community.

So basically, from a combination of the info I've researched & received: It was built at the Oberndorf munitions plant sometime after 1898 & before 1901 where it languished until it was sent to the Suhl proof house in 1912 (common for rifles to be bulk manufactured, then batch proofed as needed) From the it was shipped to the arsenal in Erfurt, where some enterprising young nerk decided he needed it more than the military & nicked it! Sometime after the Great War, during Germany's 'reconstruction' effort, said nerk (unlikely, due to being probably incredibly dead) or someone else had it bored out to 9mm, to avoid the military caliber ban, but it somehow managed to evade being re-proofed (the equivalent nowadays of owning a suppressor without a stamp. Very slap-on-the-wristy) Time passed, it passed through the hands of one Karl or his brother Kurt Schüler, deer were probably killed & then a really keen 19 year old (probably) American GI decided to throw it in his sea bag & bring it here! God only knows who he was, or where it came in, but it ended up in Alaska, where my old mate Bob picked it up, carried it to Africa, killed at least a lion (and lord only knows what else) and then it ended up in my sticky mitts! It's so cool I can't hardly stand it!

I received some further info this morning (Kudae from the Nitro Express forums; an actual German, Mauser historian! In Germany!! ) "This rifle was proofed at the Suhl proofhouse in 1912 as the bore/land (notgroove/bullet!)diameter is marked as 7.8 mm, but the service load info is still given as 2.75 gramm smokeless rifle powder and a steel jacketed bullet. The CROWN + crown/N marks indicate proof using the 4000 atm special proof powder, according to the proof rule of July 23, 1893. The rifle was proofed only once for the 8x57 I cartridge. As it is rebored to 9x57, it lacks the mandatory reproof . So the reboring was probably done about 1920, when the „military“ 8x57 was prohibited and proofhouses were not operating due to revolutionary turmoil. As the worker’s marks under the receiver show, the action is a Gewehr 98 one of military production, smuggled out of the Erfurt arsenal. A „grey market“ action, sometimes encountered at that time. The crudely scratched name on the barrel is probably of a former owner. No reputable gunmaker would have signed his gun with such scribbling. The rifle was once mounted with claw mounts. As the scope was not „liberated“ too in 1945, the now useless bases were removed and the front base dovetail in the receiver ring filled in. "

Found this site while I was looking at the exact same challenge and made a simple and strong mount for free. I used an old tripod mount I already had and a couple of flat-head screws that were a very similar size to a standard rail. A bit of spare timber, a couple of holes and some epoxy later I had a very solid mount that I could put onto any tripod. Bit basic but might give you a free solution in a pinch Mike

If I'm off base here, someone correct me, but something that seems to be overlooked in the caliber discussion is how quickly you can hit the target more than once. Two 380 holes a few inches apart would seem to have a great chance of stopping a target than one 9mm hole. If someone cannot control recoil well enough to place an instant 2nd shot somewhere on target, then they either need to work on recoil control or they need a gun with less recoil.

I save a fair amount of money on the big calibers. I might load 9mm if the mood strikes me and I need something to do - but that’s a rarity these days.

I started reloading when I was 13 or 14. Got an RCBS Rock Chucker kit that I still have and use when the notion strikes me. Discovered some examples from those early days of 9mm and .30-30 a few years ago. Surprised I didn’t blow myself up, lol. Rolling your own is immensely satisfying and rewarding. You will also end up with ammo far superior to factory loads...If you do it right. Doing it right takes time and you really need to be a bit OCD. The only caliber I find worth the time loading is .38 Special/.357 Magnum. huge cost saving there. Same for any revolver cartridge. I loaded up 1k 9mm a few years ago. Don’t ever see myself reloading for a semi-auto firearm again. What takes hours and days to create that is blasted away in minutes just doesn’t make sense when there are so many other things to do.

Learn to reload. Buy a Rockchuker. At least spend some time looking into it so you can be prepared for the next time.

Yep...what all the previous guy haves said. All ammo is high. From merely higher to outright ridiculous. Check the prime distributors...PSA, Ammoman.com, etc. Everything has gone 30-50% up in the last few months. I've seen 9mm around 30 each. And I almost bought another case! lol Buy by the case if you can. That's your best bet right now. Buying from most LGS's and ranges will eat your budget pretty fast.

I have a Kindle, 2 actually, and have not used them. I know, that's sad. I really do have some things I'd like to read that are ebook only, or cost prohibitive. There are some books/authors that I will buy and keep, but a lot of things that would probably one time reads. Actually had several thousand books at one time. But the Great Nashville Flood took a lot of them. Plus at my age, I try to be a bit more judicious in my buying. LOL! Right. We went to an Estate Sale in Hendersonville last week and I bought 24 Hard Covers. Stephen King, Clive Cussler, and Dean Koontz. The sales promoters were asking 5 apiece at the start. But these guys don't like to have to move things themselves, so a little dickering was involved. I gave a buck apiece for them. Had I got there earlier, I would have bought more and really haggled on price. But a couple were skimming and picking as I got there. They took a hundred or more. Resellers maybe. Or just like me and buying for the future downtime. I guess half or more of my book buying is estate sale or used books these days. At a sale last fall, I got 57 I think it was for a buck each. All SYFY and mystery/thrillers; but things I had a bigger interest in. Short version...I like to read and it seems I like to hoard as well.

Yes...reading is getting to be an expensive pastime. I got into Amazon's book selections 7 or 8 years ago. Back then selection was terrific and costs were competitive with brick and mortar stores. Kindle and E readers were the go to for everyone. Book costs were low and sales were high. High enough to give electronic media a stranglehold on material. If a writer wanted to publish, he had little choice as an unknown breaking in. Getting picked up by an established publisher was difficult. But going to Amazon and the like, got them out in the hands of buyers by electronic media. Writers got paid. Print costs were gone. E-publishing thrived. And took over. Novice writers had to get a public presence and a following to survive. To do that, they went to e-publishing. The cycle perpetuates and "hard" books are dying. That gives a virtual monopoly to Amazon and others. They control costs on all sides now. Buying material and publishing. Writers are getting paid. But we are paying the costs...again. We went to the dark side to get more selection and save money. Now we have loads of choices. Dozens, if not hundreds of stories and plots that differ little. So more gets "published", but is the reader served with quality? Or just more of the same, again and again. But that "saving money" part has vanished. Sorry, this is a sore spot for me. lol. I guess I got a bit carried away.

R2D2’s Grandpa & Grandma

Congrats. I mean you're house broken and everything. She done a good job.

.