Darrell

Wow, that's great! Good for you. I stop in at a local shop pretty regularly and they sometimes have powder, but tell me they've not seen primers for many moons. Those resellers you mentioned really tick me off!

I hope you're right, as I surely have Alleycat beat here. This stuff came to me as part of a big pile of reloading stuff that I traded for with a friend. The price on the magnum primer pack is $7.20. I grabbed a dozen primers at random and loaded them into cases then fired them off. All the SP pistol primers fired as-expected but a couple of the SPM primers failed to go pop. I'll likely load the magnums anyway for plinking, and just pull the bullets of any rounds that don't fire. Beside this can of W296 there was a larger (I think 4 pound) sealed can as well. The powder seems to be fine.

First of all, I have a lot of sympathy for your situation, and you have my sincere thanks for your career in law enforcement. I feel fortunate never to have had a NICS problem, especially after having read of a few on this forum. But as to the quote above, proceed with caution. My wife and I moved here about two years ago, she immediately obtained a TN driver's license but I held on to my old one for a while for some technical reasons. I purchased a rifle at the local gun shop but the owner had a lot of trouble running my WA state license. The license number is formatted much differently than the TN license. I said something about having my wife buy the rifle, and the dealer said he wouldn't do it as it would be considered a straw-man purchase. I guess that's a fine-line, and as it turns out he was able to run my license after a phone call. So while it's perfectly legal to buy a firearm with the intention of giving it as a gift, it is not legal to purchase a firearm to help someone get around the NICS.

And then you have to put ammo in it......

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch used a February 20, 2021, editorial to suggest President Joe Biden could make the left’s gun control dreams come true. The editorial opened with: Ironically, universal background checks would not have prevented the Parkland shooting, yet the Post-Dispatch editorial board lists such checks as a “rational” response. In fact, universal background checks would not have prevented the overwhelming majority of mass public attacks that occurred over the last decade, because the attackers acquired their guns at retail via background checks.

I saw that on the news, but the same article said that the FedEx facility was still operating, being different from the passenger terminal. Good that you're mostly in the clear there. I live about midway between Knoxville and Nashville, and our snow was only a problem for a single day. I hope those in Memphis get clean water back ASAP.

Falling on the ice is bad news! Good you didn't get hurt. What's going on around Memphis right now? I've been expecting an "overnight" package via FedEx since Wed, and the tracking just shows that a delivery date is pending. It looks like the airport is working normally, are the roads okay?

I've seen those posts on Cast Boolits, too, and I think there are some YouTube videos out there. I don't see myself trying it. Spent primers have lead in and on them, and lead is definitely hazardous to your health. You'd probably not want to handle thousands of spent primers if you can avoid it. But if you must, change and wash your clothes when you're done and wash your hands thoroughly. (I cast and load lead bullets frequently, of course, so maybe I'm full of beans.) I'd kinda sorta like to try reloading .22, just as an experiment. There are kits out there with everything you need.

50 BMG, 338 Win Mag., 338 Lapua Mag. Does my 45-70 count, too?

No,I don't get leading when shooting plain lead bullets, or PC, either. I don't see any difference at all with powder coating, except that the bullet looks more interesting. As I mentioned above, I try to match theoretical velocity to bullet hardness. I shoot quite a bit of cast lead through my 30-06 (Lee Soup Cans) at low velocities and they're very accurate, out to about 100 yards. I like liquid Alox for a lube, and it seems to do a good job of preventing leading. I'm always on the lookout for some cheap pewter item at the local second hand stores, and those get cut up and added to pure lead to raise the tin content and therefore the lead hardness. I'd like to try paper-patching in a 338 Lapua with lead bullets, but I'm still researching that. I've shot cast 338 bullets at reduced velocity through a 338 Win Mag with some success, but the Lapua case is a WHOLE lot bigger.

I've had primers go off when using a Lee Loader, and while it made it jump, it didn't do any harm. I'm going to have to check back in a day or so and see if anyone bought the guy's stock of blanks. I'd have to be pretty desperate to go to so much trouble.

I cast quite a bit, and have tried powder coating my cast bullets, but haven't been all that impressed with the results. Are you powder coating your own, or buying them that way? Sounds like you're buying them coated. Honestly, I didn't notice much difference in anything comparing uncoated to coated. I'm careful to keep velocities in-line with lead hardness, so I haven't seen any barrel-leading with uncoated bullets. I don't have a chronograph, so maybe the coated bullets are bit faster, but in my experience they're no cleaner. And the mess involved in coating bullets is hardly worth the trouble. Of course I'll continue to experiment a bit. I cast .338 bullets and may try coating some of those.

I saw something new today while perusing Armslist. A TN seller is offering up 1000 308 BLANKS for their primers. It sure wouldn't be worth the effort to me, but it made me wonder if live primers can actually be pushed out of a case and reloaded. Whenever I've wanted to remove an unfired primer I've always put a squirt of oil in the case and let it sit overnight for fear of having it go off during extraction. Anyone here ever actually push out unfired primers and reuse them? I don't have any desire to actually do that, I just wonder how practical it might be.

There's something terribly, horribly wrong with some people in this country. I took a look at some of the tweets out of Hollywood and from certain left-wing activists. Just sickening stuff! These are supposed to be the tolerant among us....

I have a mini-split system which has no auxiliary heating elements at all, and is 100% efficient to 0 degrees F. That probably doesn't help jhc77 much, but if you're considering replacing your old system, the new mini-splits work great and cost a lot less to run. They are more expensive up-front, though.

Current headline on Fox News site It's old news, from Sunday, but worth a few minutes to read for anyone who cares about the 2A https://www.foxnews.com/politics/psaki-gun-control-a-priority-biden-not-afraid-of-standing-up-to-the-nra Psaki: Gun control a 'priority,' Biden 'not afraid of standing up' to the NRA Biden said his administration 'will not wait for the next mass shooting' to push for gun control

It's not looking too good this morning. Very cold temperature and a bit of light snow falling. I'll be staying indoors today.

Here in my neck of Cumberland county it's raining hard, but the forecast says it will turn to sleet or snow tonight. BUT... that forecast called for snow off and on all day and that hasn't happened so far. So knock wood, maybe we won't have the ordeal of an ice storm. Looks like tomorrow is gonna be frigid, though.

There are span calculators available on-line. Here's one: https://www.awc.org/codes-standards/calculators-software/reversecalc An 11.5' span is relatively short, but it depends on the size of the joists and the loaded (dead) weight of the safes. A 2x12 will support more dead weight than a 2x8. If you find that you're pushing the limits of the joists under your house, you can add some 4x4 posts on concrete piers midway between the safes to effectively reduce the span. You can also add a couple of extra joists if you think you need them.

I take anything I read on InfoWars with three or four pretty big grains of salt, but I think this article is interesting: https://www.infowars.com/posts/ammo-company-demands-customers-check-box-saying-they-did-not-vote-for-joe-biden-to-purchase-rounds/ I knew that there were a lot of firearms sold recently, but my eyes were opened a bit by just home many.

It's too bad that investment rates don't approach the loan interest rates.

I moved here from Washington, which has interesting carry laws. Washington's a "shall-issue" state, but open-carry is legal without a permit. Of course one must be legally able to possess a firearm for open carry. I regularly carried a holstered revolver when walking through the woods without bothering to carry ID, and kind of miss that ability here. Unfortunately, WA doesn't recognize our TN permits because TN allows some 18-year-olds to obtain one. I'm well beyond that age, but I believe that allowance is for active duty military or veterans.

Governor Spencer Cox (R), will sign legislation this week to eliminate the permit requirement currently in place for carrying a concealed weapon. The act will permit any law-abiding person over the age of 21 to carry a concealed firearm while in the State of Utah. It's good to read that several states are moving to Constitutional Carry, including Utah. But I wonder if those states will still issue permits. The way politics ebbs and flows, I think my preference would be to continue to hold my permit, whether or not it's required. I can foresee a day when the pendulum swings back, and those who might not have renewed a permit could be left swinging in the breeze.

Taken. On it's way soon. .308 Case Length Gage: I bought a pile of reloading stuff recently, and in the pile was a case length gage for .308. As I already have one, this one is free to anyone who can use it. It had some grime on it and I ran it through my wet-tumbler. That changed the metal color a bit, but I put some cases into it and they fit fine.