deerslayer

A friend has one and recently began having light strikes. Turns out his hammer spring was toast. More research indicated that his is not the first. He uses it in a competitive setting and it gets the hell shot out of it, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen hammer springs go bad. Not that quickly, anyway.

I think the ones who reload are, and increasingly so. Lots of reloading types had large pistol primers sitting around doing nothing. Now that small pistol primers don't exist, people are getting their .45s out and using those large primers.

I don't have a picture, but my dumbest self-inflicted cut happened when I was 10 or 11 years old. I had a stupid ritual of "beheading" a banana with a paring knife instead of peeling it like a normal stupid kid. One day I shot 1/4" left and hit the side of my thumb. The blade hit at an angle and made about a 1/2" cut and lacked 1/8" taking the whole corner off. That one bled. What really sucked was getting the sliced nail hung on everything as my thumb healed up. Never was the smartest kid in class...

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I would look at a Dillon 550. It should be similar in price to a Hornady LnL. The 550 is a 4 station non auto-indexing progressive press that is very straightforward and new user-friendly. I have a friend who was new to reloading and I helped him set up his new LnL. It's a good press, but after tinkering with it, I felt that it's a little more complicated than even a Dillon 650/750. Some people throw rocks at the 550 because it doesn't auto index, but I can load 100 rounds in eight minutes with mine. How fast do you need to go? You still have case prep/cleaning before loading and gaging afterward. I have two and my first one was given to me by a friend whose father loaded .308 on it in the early 90s. His father died and the 550 got neglected. When I got it, it looked like it was retrieved from the Titanic and I figured it was worthless. I knew about Dillon's supposedly lifetime warranty, so I called them and they told me to ship it to them. I was hesitant because I figured a new one would be cheaper than what a refurb would cost. Three weeks later I got it back and it looked almost new. There was no charge. After that, I bought a Dillon hat. I would comment on the Lee progressives, but my mama told me if I don't have anything nice to say... ETA: I would avoid a Dillon Square Deal B. They are not as expensive and are competent presses, but they use proprietary dies and sooner or later, that will make you unhappy.

Well, that deal was made when there wasn't an anti-US energy administration in power. Th price didn't have to increase this much. ETA: I haven't read this agreement, but I bet there was some stipulation that all involved parties could renegotiate in the event of a crisis. Whatever the case, the agreement was for two years and that was two years ago. OPEC is free to do whatever they like, and lately they are telling Biden to eat sh*t.

Trump brokered a deal with OPEC for THEM to reduce oil production during a time when oil was already cheap and the world was suddenly faced with a drastic reduction in demand due to people staying home during the pandemic. Your CNBC oil expert paints a pretty grim picture: The sharp decline in oil prices spurred giant capex and job cuts across the U.S. shale industry, which has some of the highest production costs in the world. Trump initially thought the price war between OPEC an Russia would be a good thing for American consumers, but But Yergin said: ”(Trump) came to see this as a national security issue, also an employment issue, and a very important factor in the U.S. economy … and he just jumped in.” So the point is, at a time when there was surplus oil and prices were in danger of crashing, Trump convinced OPEC to cut production, but we made no such commitment. The apparent result was he maintained American energy production and saved American jobs in the process. Did you even read the entire article?

I did. Twice. I noticed you left out this part: OPEC+ is hoping that nations outside of the group, including the U.S., Canada and Norway, will also cut back on production in an effort to shore up prices. For his part, Trump has noted that market forces would naturally curb output stateside, after previously stopping short of saying the U.S. would scale back production. So again, how much was US oil production reduced as a result of this agreement?

Was domestic production reduced as a result?

I drove home from 240/Millbranch and wanted to drink by the time I got home. Everybody but me wanted to turn on their flashers and go 10 mph.

The F-class guys use the e-targets, which are really cool, but there's just something about taking home a paper target with a good group.

Quick question--was all shooting strictly on paper targets? No e-targets? If so, what kind of spotting scopes did they use or was their $4k 55x riflescopes good enough? I want a spotting scope, but it's pointless if I can't find 6mm holes on a white background at 600. We were out there one day and a guy was shooting a benchrest rifle on paper and was able to do this with his riflescope. No idea what it was, though. Probably something worth more than my truck.

So demand decreased.

The good old days…

Problem is Pravda or whatever it's now called is feeding Russian citizens garbage. My sister spent part of a summer over in Ukraine years ago as a guest teacher. She ate supper with one of her students one night because her parents wanted to meet a real, live American. They peppered her with questions like "Why did you kill Indians? Wasn't it terrifying living under the reign of the horrible Ronald Reagan? What was it like standing for hours in line for bread?" They were educated before the end of the Soviet Union and my sister quickly realized that it involved some serious propaganda. That was years ago, but I bet much of the Russian press is pretty similar today.

…and no one talks about this painfully obvious irony. I have to wonder if the end game is no cars for the unwashed masses. I have gradually come to the conclusion that certain politicians would prefer to see us riding in double decker buses instead of driving places. Cars = freedom and that just doesn’t sit well with some folks.

All that makes sense, but it seems (and I’m going strictly by memory) that gas prices started to rise well before people started driving back to work or taking trips on a significant level. I could be wrong, though.

I’m all for nuclear, but we (USA) have the means and capability to eliminate many of the the oil/gas/fossil related problems you describe. Also, the resources needed for electric cars are becoming harder to obtain.

Because supply was limited, but that wasn’t so with gas.

Also, why did world markets freak out after the 2019 terrorist attack on Saudi oil refineries, but no one over here noticed?

Of course POTUS doesn’t set the price, but why was gas cheaper before the pandemic, when everybody was driving to work and going on vacations and demand was higher than ever? I haven’t read about reduced oil refining capabilities due to covid-induced labor shortages in the oil industry.

Would a boost in supply from new US production not theoretically reduce the price? Assuming the Saudis or somebody didn’t respond by reducing production.

Exactly. Gas was $1.89 two or three years ago. Wonder what changed.

That won’t be a significant accomplishment. Are surpressors allowed/not allowed, change what division you’re in, etc?

20 rounds sounds better than the 60 or so the F class guys shoot. I got 600 certified about a year ago. When do the benchrest guys shoot? I think F class is (was?) 1st Saturday. I’ve heard people joke that Benchrest is competitive reloading, not competitive shooting.