In the midst of all the doom ‘n gloom running around in my head, it seems somewhat incongruous that Satchmo’s little ditty has been putting in an appearance…
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Problematic
More than a few of my Readers have suggested that I start reloading ammo — at least the .38 Special — so that I can build up a decent stock without bankrupting my self by buying it retail.
One unbelievably generous soul has even offered to set me up with a complete reloading station (an older, simple affair that he no longer uses) including powder, primers, casings and even boolets.
Did I mention before that I have the best damn Readers on the Internet?
Here’s my problem. Even with the best will in the world, I have no space to start reloading ammo. When we moved from Plano, we moved into a tiny and I mean tiny apartment that is just large enough to hold two people. There’s no way I could set up a loading station there, unless I set it up, reloaded for a few hours, then broke it all down again before New Wife got home, and then went through the whole rigmarole again and again. She’s not afraid of the business, mind you, but we just have no spare room available — I’d have to move the dining room furniture out (where?) just to be able to set it up.
We do have a garage (not attached to the apartment, but a hundred-odd yards away), but it’s not insulated — think: Texas oven — and in any event, I’m pretty sure that there’s something in the lease which says I can’t do it anyway.
So I have to decline all such offers (thanks, Bruce) and be content with buying the ammo as cheaply as I can.
Several Readers have stepped up with suggestions of places where I could do just that, and I’ll be doing the due diligence when the time comes for me to do some serious bulk purchasing. In the meantime, I discovered that Texas Legends (my local range) actually sells practice ammo at quite a reasonable price, the only problem being that it’s the heavier 158gr. loads, with nothing smaller available. Still that’s not going to kill me nor break the bank — a couple hundred rounds over the next month or so is doable — so while I hate being “short” of ammo, at least I’m not faced with the Covid-era situation where there wasn’t any ammo available.
And I have shall we say an adequate supply of premium self-defense .38 Special (chortle chortle) so the situation is not too critical.
By the way, there’s a lesson here: if you practice a lot, as I do, be sure to take stock of your ammo supply at regular intervals (as I didn’t, in this case) so you don’t end up in my predicament. I’ve always checked my .45 ACP stock levels because that’s the handgun caliber I practice with the most, but because until recently I only had the little S&W 637 Airweight (my backup), I hardly ever bothered with checking the .38 Special stock because I hardly ever shot the thing — maybe twice a year.
Now, of course, I’m in a different situation with MOAR .38 revolvers (however did that happen?) and having rediscovered the joys of centerfire revolver shooting, I’m going to be doing that a lot more.
And there’s always the .22LR guns, for which I have sufficient stocks to last me (and the Son&Heir, and his Son&Heir) several lifetimes, regardless of frequency.
Once again, though: thank you all for your concern and your support, as always.
News Desert
I have to say that the past week or so has had news of little or no interest to me, and even less worth commenting on.
Yeah, Trump has finally got Iran to sign a “deal” which will do something or other, but I suspect that those assholes have no intention of following any of its terms — at least, those terms which would prevent it from continuing their jihad against Israel and the West — so I suspect that at some point we’ll have to go back and do it all over again.
And the Brits are totally fucked under Labour — we all knew that anyway — but I see little light at the end of that particular tunnel until a proper alternative can be found for the Socialists. Don’t hold yer breath. If we think that repatriating the millions of illegal aliens Over Here is difficult, it will be exponentially more difficult Over There with the millions of “refugees” they’ve welcomed in and allowed to infest their once-proud society.
I don’t care about Europe as a whole, anyway, so whatever happens to them will happen — they brought it all on themselves anyway — and yeah, whatever.
Everyone keeps saying that China’s economy is going to collapse soon, but I think that’s bullshit. As the man said: there’s a lot of ruin in a nation, and anyone thinking there’ll be some sudden cataclysmic collapse is deluding themselves. (They said that about the Soviet Union too, and it did collapse; but I see no evidence of a Chinese Gorbachev to start the ball rolling.)
As for our economy… don’t ask. At some point we too are going to be well and truly fucked, thanks to our feckless government spending levels, but if there’s a lot of ruin in China, there’s a hell of a lot more ruin in the U.S. If we can somehow solve the issue without wholesale executions (quit that cheering), it will be a win.
The only bit of cheering news I see is that the stupid and self-destructive Green movement is starting to see the air escaping out of their little balloon, and not a moment too soon, says I. As Insty says, faster please.
I think I’ll go to the range and shot off a whole bunch of .22 because why not?
Chewsday Challenge
Study this extraordinary book cover:
…then tell us all (in Comments) whose pics you think would appear in such a tome.
Note: read the contributions of other Readers first, to avoid duplicates.
Incentive
I see that Lewis Hamilton won the Spanish F1 Grand Prix in his Ferrari yesterday, this after coming in second place a week ago in Monaco. Also, he’s been bonking Kim Kardashian recently.
I’m sure the two events (improved GP results and bonking Kimmy) aren’t related, unless the entire Kardashian coven has been casting spells on his behalf (which wouldn’t surprise me).
Minor Hassle No More
Following on from Saturday’s post about my revolver range session, I went off to the local Merchants Of Death Collective (Mesquite Gun Show) to see if I could rectify two problems identified at that session: getting some decent (fuller) wooden grips for the Model 10, and replenishing my depleted .38 Special ammo supply. I thought that the first might be difficult, the second easy. Au contraire, mes amis.
The grips took me about 15 minutes to find (among about 700 tables):
Old:
New:
Much better, innit? Can’t wait to get back to the range now, except that I don’t have any cheap ammo to shoot. So I looked around for ammo vendors.
And here’s where the problems began.
Five big ammo dealers were at the show, so one would think…. but no. If you were looking for 5.56 Poodleshooter or 7.62 Commie, you’d have had no problem. Good grief: it looked like the Army was having a clearance sale. Ditto 9mm Europellet and all manner of similar teeny handgun ammo (e.g. .380, .327 etc.) were proudly displayed in bulk.
.38 Special? Hardly any. (And what was there wasn’t what I was looking for anyway.) As I mentioned, I have plenty of defensive loads in .38 Spec and .38 +P — the goblin antidote — but I’m out of range ammo. What I’m looking for, in fact, is something like this:
The cowboy stuff is what’s known as a “bunny-fart” load, and it’s both inexpensive (~ 45c/round) and pleasant to shoot because of the lighter bullets. (Yeah, it’s lead flat nose and not copper-clad, but I clean my guns quite frequently so not a problem.) The Winchester is ubiquitous, and a little cheaper.
And both are readily available online, except that shipping (for only 200 rounds) adds about $50 to the total, making it… [errr carry the three] 82c/round (?????!!!!). The hell with that.
SGA Ammo sells the Winchester for a decent price, but you have to buy the jillion-round box to get free shipping. Philosophically, I don’t have a problem with a bulk purchase (because duh), but financially… ugh.
Let’s see what they sell for locally.
One final note: it seems as though revolvers are heading for a shrinking market (that would be Olde Pharttes like me)
…because all the new shooters seem to be enthralled by the gangsta/operator Glocks and SIGs and what have you, and not by wheelguns. And so once-ubiquitous calibers like .45 Colt and .38 Spec are, it seems, being pushed to the sidelines and rapidly becoming unavailable. Which means that we members of the Ancient Revolver Shooting Club need to buy MOAR .38 Spec.
Duly noted.