JAB

  I tell them that I want to watch my weight so I have to get it out there so I can see it.

  Because of the Kel Tec P3AT, Ruger's Little Copied Pistol and other pocket .380s a whole lot of ammo R&D has gone in to creating .380 ammo that will 'work' from a short barrel in the last, few years.  I imagine you'll be able to find something that suits your needs in the Derringer.

  Wow.  I hope he was at least talking about the 100 round 'value packs'.  (Yeah, I know - probably not.)   Speaking of that, I think we are certainly going to see lasting price increases due to this nonsense.  Walmart just opened a new location in Sweetwater (opened last Wednesday.)  I was in there last night and they had the 100 round 'value packs' of Remington UMC .380 that I used to buy all day long for about $36 and they were priced at over $40 per box.  The same brand of .357 100 round 'value pack' JHP was nearly $60.  I left them for someone else.   When I asked one of the associates if they had even gotten any .22 in, he said that they had but that it was pretty much gone as soon as they opened their doors at 7:30 Wednesday morning.

  I think this part may be true but I believe your mistake - especially in the previous post - was including all of 'us' who have decent on-hand ammo supplies as part of the problem.  Sure, people buying up every box they can get their hands on, now, to put back on a shelf is likely adding to the shortage.  However, I really doubt that the eight or ten bricks of .22LR I have on my shelf - bricks that were purchased one or two at a time with such purchases spread out over the space of a couple of years - have any impact on the current market, whatsoever.  In fact, I would argue that it has a positive impact on the current market because those of us who built a little on-hand supply when ammo was readily available are probably not competing nearly so much for the limited supply, now.  I know that it has been just about a year since I bought any ,22LR ammo.  In fact, other than shotgun shells (which are readily available) and a single box of Remington Accu-tip WMR ammo, I really haven't bought much if any ammo in the past year or so.  For that matter, other than about 100 .44 Mag bullets (which I still haven't gotten around to loading) I haven't even bought any reloading supplies in about a year.  I am certainly not shooting as much as I did, before (although my onhand supply means I haven't had to stop, entirely) but I haven't been buying ammo.  Sure, I look at Walmart when I happen to be in there and if there were some on the shelf I'd probably buy a box and then go home and feel much more comfortable about shooting up some of the ammo on my shelf (using the new box to replace it.)  However, I haven't stood in line, gone in several times a week just trying to find ammo or showed up at 4 a.m. to try and get ahead of the profiteers - and I certainly have not bought any ammo from those profiteers.

  Well, for us long time shooting enthusiasts that may be true but I think there are a lot of new shooters out there who may not know any better.  It certainly appears that a lot of folks bought guns since this whole 'panic' started and there are likely a lot of new gun owners/shooters among them who never realized that a brick of .22LR SHOULD cost about $20.

  I don't know that I have ever had brandied peaches but they sound good.  Any chance of you sharing the recipe?   My late grandmother used to can pickled pears (with lots of cinnamon and spices) that were danged good.  I don't know that I have ever even seen pickled pears in a store.  I don't currently have her recipe, though, and have never made them.  My great-grandmother, when she still lived alone, had a pear tree in her front yard that produced those rough, hard, brown pears that weren't all that great to eat fresh.  My grandmother would pickle them, though, and they'd be really good.   She also made and canned something one year that she called 'pear honey'.  The pears were pretty well chopped/ground up (I assume she used a blender or food processor) and were in a thick, sweet 'liquid' that really was just about the consistency of honey (although there was no actual honey in it to my knowledge.)  That was some good stuff, too - whether on a home made biscuit or over vanilla ice cream.

  Those studies were interesting but they didn't really say if the canned goods were commercially canned or home canned.  In a FAQ on their website, Hormel states that their canned meats - as long as the can is not rusted or otherwise compromises, will generally NEVER go bad.  They say that there may be a loss of nutrients and flavor and that the texture may change after the 'use by' date stamped on the can has passed but that they will be safe to eat pretty much forever.  Those are commercially canned products, however.  I have to wonder if home-canned products would last as long - although I defintely think they can last longer than some may assume and, if done correctly, will last a lot longer than the one year cutoff that some folks recommend. 

  It has been a while since I canned chicken noodle soup but when I did I just made the soup (noodles and all), ate part of it and canned the rest.  Didn't have any issues.  I figure that Campbell's cans their chicken noodle soup with the noodles in it so why couldn't I?  Maybe mine worked out because the noodles were home-made and I left them a little 'firm' (pretty much al dente.).  I know I used semolina flour and it seems like I used an eggless pasta recipe (as I said, it has been a while) so maybe that figured into it, as well.   The hot sauces were also made a few years back.  I had a huge crop of peppers that year and already had more dried than I knew what to do with.  In more recent years, I haven't gotten as many peppers and so have mostly just dried them.   I made two sauces that year.  One was made with yellow habaneros and was intended to be similar to a Belize style hot sauce.  The following link wasn't exactly like what I made but it is similar.  The closest 'store bought' equivalent is something like a Melinda's, which is a Belize style hot sauce (created by the same Belizean woman who created Marie Sharp's - Melinda's was her first company and her American distributor double-crossed her and stole the Melinda's brand from her.)  This kind of hot sauce has less vinegar to overpower the flavor of the peppers or the flavor of the food to which it is added than something like a Tobasco sauce.  The stuff I made looked pretty much like the sauce iin the pic at the link.  I did a higher ratio of peppers to the other ingredients than this recipe and I didn't add any fruits because I wanted the flavor to be mostly about the habaneros.  I made it as a hot sauce but ended up eating a lot of it with just tortilla chips, like salsa.   http://www.food.com/recipe/belizean-style-habanero-sauce-hot-sauce-440697   The other one I made didn't have so much a 'recipe' as an inspiration (I am bad about just making stuff up as I go and not writing it down.)  The 'inspiration' for it was Jamaican Pickapeppa sauce but I wanted to do my own 'riff' on it and try to come up with something truly different.  Just going from memory, it had a can of (Jumex brand) tamarind juice, a can of (also Jumex) mango juice, a little lime juice, garlic, onion, cloves, ginger and a few carrots along with a variety of peppers (one or two habaneros, several serrano, one or two jalapenos and a handful of mild/sweet Italian cherry peppers.)  The idea of that one was more for a sauce with a big, bold flavor and not as much heat.  It came out really well and even people I know who don't care much for hot sauces, etc. loved it.

  Could be but I am not a member and have not signed any kind of agreement with them.  If I am in there, I will just be going with a friend who is a member.  Also, IANAL but I don't know that there is any 'exception' in TN state law for private club agreements replacing legal postings.  I would guess that Costco could ask someone to leave (and pursue a trespassing charge if they did not) and maybe suspend/cancel their membership but don't see how carrying in stores that aren't posted would be in violation of the law (unless there is some nuance to the law of which I am unaware.)

  Actually, if one person's 'complaining' leads someone else who didn't already realize that profiteers are part of the problem to come to that realization and stop buying from the profiteers then said 'complaining' DOES do some good.

  That is exactly what I have been trying to say but you explained it much more thoroughly and clearly.  Thank you.

  Interesting.  The one time I have been to Costco, we asked about being allowed to 'preview' or some such (had been told that they allowed this.)  We were given a piece of paper with a code on it that acted as a temporary/preview 'membership', for lack of a better term.  Of course, that was at the Knoxville location just a month or two after they opened so I don't know if they are still doing that or not.  I didn't purchase a membership but a friend who was with me did.  I can use hers if I want to go back but haven't had the opportunity, yet.   I had read on this forum, before, that all Costco locations are posted so I specifically looked around the entrance and didn't see anything that I believe qualified as a legal posting (in fact, I don't recall seeing anything about 'weapons' at all.)  Again, though, that was shortly after they opened so they may have just not put up the sign, yet.   Overall, I think I liked Costco better than Sams.  Mostly, though, that was due to specific items that caught my attention.  For instance, Costco's had a huge cheese selection.  I also think Costco might have been a little better on their fresh meat prices (but haven't been to Sam's lately to confirm.)  A lot of things seemed pretty much equal, though.

  Yep, sounds like overall a move in a very positive direction.  I have to say, though, that the contortions government officials (including judges, justices, etc.) go through to maintain powers that the government was never meant to have are sometimes quite amazing.  Case in point, from the summary of the decision included in the article linked from the OP:     So, how in the world do they officially recognize the Second Amendment as an individual right but still manage to state that the same Amendment - the one that states, "...Congress shall pass no law..." allows for 'meaningful regulation'?

  And they would be buying it at a normal price from a regular retailer that is a normal part of the supply/demand chain rather than paying overinflated prices to profiteers who are interrupting the normal supply/demand chain and contributing to a perceived shortage, thereby creating a FALSE market, not a free market.   As others have said, a person who decides to sell something they have decided that don't need, cannot use, etc. is not the same.  A person or business that obtains goods from a regular supplier and sells to the public at a normal, retail price is not the same.  A person who makes a product and sells it to the public is not the same.  A person who knowingly and willfully buys a high demand item from a retailer - and uses straw man purchases (i.e. brings his buddies with him) to skirt rules put in place by said retailer to try and prevent exactly what that person is doing - is not 'just another entrepreneur participating in the free market economy.'  Instead, such a person is a profiteer who is falsely manipulating the market to be able to sell at ridiculous prices.

Growing up, my mom and especially my grandmother did a fair amount of canning.  She canned things like green beans and homemade, pickled beets (the ones she canned are the best pickled beets I have ever eaten.)  As others have said, the vegetables you can, yourself, will usually taste better and a whole lot more like 'fresh picked' than commercially canned things.  Also, my mom and grandmother canned jellies and other fruit preserves, sometimes.  Sure, those things might not be all that expensive at the grocery store but the jellies, etc. were often from wild blackberries (or, until the danged road crew cut them down the ONE year that they mowed that part of our road) wild black raspberries (the taste of those things put blackberries to shame and the jelly from them - best PB&J sandwich ever) that didn't cost us anything.  It is hard to beat 'free'.   Other than making apple butter one year, I haven't really canned fruit preserves.  Things I have canned include:   1.  Home made hot sauces made to my tastes - there are no store bought equivalents 2.  The aforementioned home made apple butter - mostly just to see if I could 3.  Home made chicken noodle soup (home made as in I even made the noodles from scratch)* 4.  Home made Brunswick stew (the crap most places now call Brunswick stew ain't - what many places serve asl Brunswick stew is more like plain ol' beef stew with barbecue sauce in it.  Yuck.)* 5.  Home made chili.* 6.  Fresh corn (I don't like really sweet corn to begin with and commercially canned corn is usually so sweet it nearly gags me.) 7.  Home made, smoked pork barbecue (just recently - haven't even tried it, yet.)* 8.  Chicken cooked on my smoker (also recently - haven't opened one of those jars yet, either.)* 9.  Home made chicken broth (I skinned and deboned the above mentioned chicken after it came off of the smoker.  Whenever I skin and debone raw chicken, I keep the skin and bones in the freezer until I have enough to fool with.  The broth I canned used the bones and skins from the smoked chicken plus what I had in the freezer so it was a by product that helped use those otherwise wasted parts.  I have not opened a jar of it yet.)   *Things like soups, stews and chili are pretty good for home canning in my experience.  I don't usually make them specifically to can but, instead, just make an extra large batch when I decide I want to eat something like that, anyway.  After all, you are doing all the work to make the soup, etc. already so why not just make a little extra and save yourself the work the next time you want that soup, stew or so on?  Besides, the stuff you make at home and can will taste a lot better than the nasty salt-licks that pass for some of the commercially available canned soups - and I guarantee you that no commercially canned chili is anywhere near as hot as my home-made (unless some company has started using habaneros and ghost chiles in theirs without my knowing about it.)  Sure, you could freeze those things but I have a tendency to forget things that are in the freezer and they can begin to freezer burn in just a few months not to mention that if the freezer goes out or there is an interruption in electricity that lasts several days (this can happen where I live) you have to worry about losing what is in the freezer but not the stuff you have canned.  Some people say you should probably not eat home-canned items after about a year.  I ate the last jar of that Brunswich Stew two years after canning it and it tasted just as good as the day I made it.   The smoked chicken and pork barbecue that I canned were pretty much for the same reason.  If I'm going to keep the smoker going for hours, anyhow (17 hours in the case of the smoked pork) then why not smoke a little extra and can it?  Of course, I'll have to wait and see how it turned out before I know for sure if it is worth doing more of in the future (I want to give it a few weeks in the jar before trying it so I can get a more accurate idea of how it will work long term.)   These home-canned items would be useful in a SHTF event but that isn't the main reason I like canning things.  For me, it is more about doing the work of making this stuff once but being able to eat it on multiple occasions.  I generally can in pint jars which is just about the right size for a serving so I can just grab a jar to take to work for lunch.  So, for me, it is at least as much about convenience and saving leftovers without needing refrigeration as it is about 'prepping'.  There is also something I enjoy about helping to keep the practice of home canning 'alive'.

"Cannonball Run."  Hey, it is about a car race, right?  Would, "The Last Boy Scout" count?  Football sort of figures prominently into the plot.  "Kingpin" was pretty funny, IMO.  As for pure sports-themed movies about sports teams, the only thing I can think of that I might possibly find more boring than watching football (for instance) would be watching a movie about football.

Reminds me of another joke I heard a couple of years ago:   Many years ago, during the horse and buggy days, a man was doing chores in his front yard when a funeral procession came by.  To show his respect, the man stopped what he was doing and removed his hat.  That was when he noticed that the proceedings looked a bit strange.  For one thing, there were two caskets in the buggy that bore the deceased.  Of course, being that life back then was often difficult and dangerous he didn't necessarily think much about it until he saw the rest of the procession.  Directly behind the buggy was a man with a dog walking beside him.  Behind them was a long line of what looked to be a hundred or so men who all appeared to be between the ages of twenty and fifty, walking single file.  None of them walked beside each other or got out of line.   Wondering about this, the bystander approached the man with whom the dog was walking and, giving his condolences, asked about the two bodies in the buggy hoping to figure out what was going on.  The gentleman with the dog replied, "Those are the bodies of my wife and mother in law."  Not wishing to pry but unable to resist indulging his curiosity, the bystander asked what happened to them.  "Well," the bereaved replied, "my wife got mad at me for coming home late and meant to hit me with a frying pan.  This old dog here has always been very loyal to me so, seeing her come at me with that pan, he attacked her.  My mother in law was visiting and jumped in trying to help my wife - and that old dog ended up killing them both.  Being that the dog was just defending me, the police said no charges would be filed and I could keep my dog."   The bystander thought about the tale for a moment before asking, "So, do you think I could borrow your dog, sometime?"  The widower just looked at him and replied, indicating behind him, "Sure, but you'll have to get in line." 

I said all along that - even though I eventually came to believe that he was not, technically, 'guilty' of breaking any law in the Martin shooting - Zimmerman is NOT and never was a person we needed to hold up as a 'poster boy' for the self defense/firearms carry community.  If he and his wife were both to join cloistered communities and never be heard from, again, I think we would all be better off for it.

  I can't say for sure but have 'heard' (i.e. 'read' on the 'Net) from multiple sources that in a .22 combo revolver the LR will generally be less accurate because the bullet has a slightly smaller diameter while the barrel has to be sized for WMR so that the LR bullets don't engage the rifling as well.   I do know that the box of new manufacture CCI WRF rounds I bought to try out in the WMR cylinder of my Heritage (WRF being, of course, Winchester Rimfire - a now almost extinct chambering that I suppose was a bit of a forerunner to the WMR, the ammo for which can safely be fired from WMR firearms) had a warning printed on the label that they should not be fired from handguns.  When I searched the 'Net to find out why, what I found was that the warning was intended to apply to handguns actually chambered for WRF.  The explanation was that some of the old WRF revolvers simply used the same barrels as LR revolvers from the same company.   Apparently that was fine with most of the old WRF loads which, like most .22LR loads, used non-jacketed bullets.  The CCI bullets are jacketed and that since WRF bullets have a slightly larger diameter there could be problems.  Apparently, as WMR revolvers have barrels sized for WMR, the WRF rounds are fine in them.   http://www.ableammo.com/catalog/specialty-rimfire-ammunition-0069-winchester-rimfire-jacketed-hollow-point-1300-rdbx-p-75579.html   While we are exploring this side road, just to make things a little more confusing, when I emailed Heritage to find out if it is safe to fire CCI Stingers in my Rough Rider the reply said that it is safe but that I should use the WMR cylinder.  I emailed them back to make sure they realized I was talking about Stingers - a high-velocity .22 Long Rifle round - and they responded with further explanation.  Apparently, in order to obtain hyper velocities, Stingers (and possibly other, hyper-velocity .22LR rounds) have a slightly longer OAL than standard LR rounds and so may not work as well in the LR cylinder of some Rough Riders.  Figuring that a hyper-velocity round + less case support due to an oversized (WMR) chamber might not be the best combination and being that I am not that crazy about Stingers, anyhow, I figured I'd just skip using Stingers in the Heritage, altogether.

  Have some of you found then even all the old, carbon steel blades are not created equal?  I have some old, obviously carbon steel kitchen knives that will take a pretty good edge but don't seem to hold an edge very well.  Heck, I swear some of them get dull just sitting in a drawer.

Wow, UncleJak, that is a nice knife.  I am no kind of knife smith but I have to say that, IMO, you may not have forged it but as you cut it down and made/fitted the handle I'd still say you 'made' the knife, yourself.     And the last thing anyone needs is an angry blade.  Sorry, couldn't resist the bad pun.

As I told my mom when she was surprised that I said she could shoot mini-mags in her .22LR, those are supposed to be higher velocity but there is nothing 'magnum' about them.  To me, naming them that is like a company labeling a .38 Special +P round as ".38 Mini-Mag" or some such.  The mini-mag name is just a marketing ploy (and, apparently, a confusing one at that.)  CCI also makes a 'Maxi-Mag' which is a .22 Magnum load.   Oh, and I think you would have a lot of fun with either of the Henry levers.  Ammo in LR is going to be less expensive for plinking (that is, if we ever see a steady supply of it return.)  .22WMR, however, is a more powerful cartridge and, IMO, not all that expensive when compared to other rifle rounds other than .22LR (you can get a box of 50 CCI for around ten dollars - or at least that was the case before the current 'shortage'.)  I have a Henry in .22LR and hardly shoot my semiauto rifles since getting it.  I certainly wouldn't mind having one in .22 WMR (the full name of the .22 Magnum is .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire) to go along with it.

  Those are the boot grips I was talking about - at a much better price than direct from NAA the last time I checked.  As I said, I have never fired one with those on it but have held one or two and the grip feels nice and stable, not to mention they look great on the gun, IMO (better than the birds head grips, in fact.)   Notice, though, that Tennjed's link is (as he mentioned in his post) for the 'Long Rifle only' version of the grips.  If you have the magnum or combo version then it will require these:   http://www.amazon.com/GBGM-Boot-Grip-Laminated-Wood/dp/B00162LR3A/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1378829039&sr=8-3&keywords=NAA+Boot+Grip

  Yeah, I am not the biggest fan of the folding grips, myself but have run across a couple of folks on various forums who love them.   For me, the original, wooden 'birds head' grips just weren't getting the job done very well in my mitts - especially shooting with my even less dexterous non-dominant (left) hand.  What I really wanted was a set of the wooden 'boot grips'.  I've never fired an NAA with them but have held one or two and they feel nice and stable.  I was able to get a set of the large, rubber (Black Widow style but with the NAA logo on them rather than the Black Widow emblem, like the ones that come on the Mini Master models) for less than half what the boot grips would have cost with shipping, etc. so I went with those, instead.  They work well, for me, and provide a much larger grip without really taking up a lot more real estate in my pocket because, although they are taller and 'deeper', they still aren't very thick.   I have also heard opinions from guys who use the pebbled, slip on type grip (the type that comes standard on the PUG models) that those are much easier to hang onto than the originals without really adding any size or bulk.

First, just let me say that I am far from being an 'expert' on refinishing or anything else. I have only one or two 'easy' projects under my belt. So, with that out of the way, I will post a couple of pics of my (so far one and only) efforts to use cold blue for more than just small touch-ups. I used it on the barrel on an old Springfield pump action shotgun. As you may know, those shotguns are 'utility' guns - good for what they are but hardly worth much $$$. Additionally, this one had zero sentimental value, for me. I mostly wanted the experience, wasn't fixing it up to sell and really only intended to use it as a 'utility' shotgun, anyhow so my heart was not going to be broken if I fouled something up. These pics give some idea of what the barrel looked like before I started on it - the factory 'bluing' or whatever they used was more or less gone, leaving behind almost bare metal, at least in places: It got sanded to bare metal using just elbow grease and sandpaper: And then cold blued: The cold blue didn't give the absolute greatest, possible finish. That is probably due in part to the shortcomings of the product and also (probably in much larger part) to my lack of experience and skill with it - plus the fact that I wasn't just 'obsessing' over it coming out perfect. That said, I have been told by guys on other forums who have done a lot of refinishing/restoring that my results are about average for what you can expect with cold bluing even with experience and practice at using it Still, for the intended purpose I think it is a pretty decent, serviceable finish that was inexpensive and relatively easy to apply. I do think it looks better with the cold blue finish than it did, before. I would use cold bluing again, in the future, for similar projects: Before: After: