Mark A

This is why I am dehydrating as much fresh water as I can. I am storing the dehydrated water in 5 gallon food grade buckets. The only real problem is when I rehydrate it. If I rehydrate with water from a different source it changes the taste... Mark

I don't know if this will be any help or not but... When I first got my M&P pro I noticed the sights would jump when I dry fired. I talked to Randy Lee at Apex about it & he said it was all in the trigger. No matter how calm you were or how an experienced of a shooter you were it jumped. After I put his trigger stuff in it went away. Actually, all 3 of our M&P's did that. So all that said to wonder if a different trigger might fix it? Maybe one of Dolomite's trigger mod kits? Mark

For some reason when I think San Antonio I also think the Spurs. So that led to my random thought of the day: are there any cities that have NBA franchises that are not liberal crazy towns? Mark

You guys are killing me.... I'm trying really hard to not make any more purchases for the rest of this year. Every time I turn around one of these is on the web or in a magazine advertisement. It's like the gun universe is trying to send me a message. Mark

  Ahhh yes... Bob's long lost brother...

    Rush Limbaugh --> < 250,000     Followers with jobs: 249,999 Rachel Maddow --> a tad over 2.6 million    Followers with jobs: 3 CNN breaking news --> ~12 million    Followers with jobs:  7 Fox News --> ~3 million  Followers with jobs: 2,999,998         Yes, Michael Berry is a good voice on the radio. I too like Levin but I can only take him in small doses. I think he is smart as hell but he stays to angry. My blood pressure just can't deal with it.   Mark

We were there a week before this happened. It's funny as the only wildlife we saw was from pretty far away...   I carried a G29 with Buffalo Bore hardcast ammo. I seriously thought about taking my 5.56 pistol as it fits nicely in my day pack.     Apparently we were a bit lucky with the weather as we had full sun for 3 of the 6 days we were there and only really cloudy 1 day.   It was better than I imagined it ever could be.   A cool thing was being around so many armed citizens all the time...   Mark

I roughed chopped them but in the end it all gets blended together so...   Mark

we did: 16# of peaches, blanched, peeled, and diced into chunks 1 cup lemon juice enough canola oil to sweat the onions 4 sweet onions chopped I also chopped up 2 jalapenos, seeds and all 30 cloves of garlic 6 cups of dark brown sugar 4 cups of cider vinegar 2ish cups of bourbon. 1ish cup for the cook... : - ) 4 cups lea & perrins 1 cup tomato paste 3 tbsp ground ginger 2 tbsp chili powder sweat the onions for a bit, add in the jalapenos and garlic. after a few minutes add the peaches in stirring frequently. Then add the brown sugar, cider vinegar and bourbon. In about 30 minutes everything will be soft. Either puree in the pot with a immersion blender or transfer the mixture to a blender. once it is all pureed transfer it back to the pot and bring it to a boil while adding the rest of the ingredients in. Turn the heat down to a simmer and let it percolate along until it reaches the thickness and consistency you like. I had to cook mine on low overnight to get it to the thickness we felt was right sterilize everything and get it in jars with about 1/4 head space Process in a BWB for 15 minutes unless you live waaaayyyy up on the mountain. if you do you should cook it for 20 minutes We got about 14 pints out of this, Mark

we stayed a bit busy this weekend. I'm liking our new system this year. We decided to do 2 raised beds and do our best to eat out of them as much as possible. For canning we would buy from the farmers market in quantity. We just can't grow enough to can a bunch of food. It seems to work for us. Anyway, 17 pints of tomato basil sauce, 14 pints of bourbon peach BBQ sauce, and 5 pints of raw packed blueberries. I have everything ready for tomorrow night which will be 15 pints of cherry, blueberry, strawberry jam... My wife likes jam and also we give a lot away as gifts. Mark

So, I get to be one of the lucky ones. But really, a lot of us here married way up. I know I did. Anyway, true story: We were down in Birmingham taking some pistol classes from the OpSpec folks. I've shot Sigs for as long as I can remember and really like them. She had a nice 228 but didn't shoot it that well and was not in love with it. The adjunct instructor for her class was Randy Lee (principal of Apex Tactical). After about 30 minutes of her class he let her borrow his tricked out M&P. We stopped for lunch a few minutes before her group did. She saw me, pointed to her eyes, then my eyes, then down to the pistol, gave a big thumbs up and flashed her smile of control. So, no words were spoken but the mental conversation we had was: I really like this pistol, please get one for me soonest. That night we went back to the hotel room to get ready for dinner. While she was in the shower I got online, found what she wanted at Buds Guns and ordered it right then. When she got out I told her it would be here on Wednesday. She said thanks and did I order something similar so that we could train on the same platform. I told her I did and she told me it was proof she'd married a smart man. The next day I bought 3 apex trigger kits Randy had with him. The following weekend we were back at the range shooting our new M&P's. life was good and I got to keep the 228 she'd been shooting. Win win win... Mark

I buy and tell her about it. Typical reactions are: 1) that's nice 2) can I shoot it 3) (not too often but...) oh that was sweet of you. Why didn't you get yourself one at the same time? This is followed by her waiting at the door to go to the range to shoot my...errr, her new gun. Mark

Damn Peace.... I was hoping to slide my Caspar (Caster) bit by for a bit while at the same time bust on the G.I. Snow bit... That nice white rail does seem to beg for some great nose art kind of like WW2 bombers...

Boooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

Thanks for the info. I have one headed my way... Mark

Anyone have experience with this scope? I am looking to set up an M&P 10 for medium range duty. I will probably pair it with a Dr Optic for short range work. Thanks, Mark

Our Publix carries dry ice... It is a good way to flash freeze veggies. We freeze squash and zucchini and a few berries to keep for smoothies and such. Also blanch, peel, and freeze tomatoes that will be used in making sauce or salsa. We don't have enough tomato plants to get a whole bunch at once so we freeze in small lots until we get enough saved up for a big batch. Everything else gets canned. Mark

I'm just low on prepared ammo due to zero time over the last few months. If both the wife and I take a class the same weekend we can really burn through some brass (if the class allows reloaded ammo)   A lot of schools require factory ammo so when we both shoot a 3 day class we accumulate a lot of brass. So the 9 & 223 are just a bit more than we can use up pretty quickly. I am a little better stocked than I originally thought on 40 & 357 sig though. As Caster mentioned I had several WOW moments as I dug it all from all the nooks and crannies it was hiding in. It took me a long time to get it all cleaned up.   I still have a fair amount of trimming and swaging to go on about 1/2 of the 223 brass. If only work didn't keep getting in the way of shooting...   Mark

Brother, there is a reason you can only see one tiny part of the overall room... The only spec of calm in a sea of chaos. Mark

Holding Their Own 5 is just in time. We are headed to Alaska next Saturday to celebrate year 20 of marital bliss... (What? She's not looking over my shoulder???) Still 20 years... Anyway, had to slow down my reading a bit to make sure I had something to do while stuck in the sardine can. Also have been saving up survival podcast episodes so I can have a bunch of them to listen to. Mark

No cats. Not really a cat guy but I have several friends that have them and free range brass buckets with handles are always good.

Well, the bad news is the reason I have so much empty brass is I just haven't had much time to shoot the last 6 months. It's a real drag...

The brass monster was slowly surrounding me and getting out of control. I found this shelf with bins a while back and finally got a chance to set it up. I also took advantage of all the rain and cool temps the last few days to clean the heck out of all my brass. I still have some crimps to swage and some 223 that needs trimming but at least everything is put away and labeled as to what stage of prep it is in. Now I need to free up some time and start using that brass up... The buckets aren't as pretty as the shelf but they hold a ton of brass and they were free. I might buy another shelf later this fall. Best would be to get all that lovely brass loaded and free up the bins for whatever is left... Mark

(oops, apparently I didn't see jonathon1289's post but that is how I do it...)   OK, I've only set up 6 or 7 different sets of dies but none of them used this process to set them up.   In a nutshell they all called to screw the sizing die down until it met the press in the raised position, lower the press and screw the die down another 1/8 to 1/4 turn to facilitate a cam over action. The way I understand things the decapper pin setting is done after the die is adjusted but I am not familiar with all dies and presses...   Maybe I am just misunderstanding the adjustment steps you are using?   Mark

Our new raised beds are doing well. I can tell that having good dirt is going to vastly increase our production. We had some killer looking cabbage that caterpillars got a hold of and basically destroyed overnight. Waiting to see if they survive. Canning is the bomb. It can be a lot of work sometimes but having good fresh no preservative food is worth it. Mark