Amigo’s Cantina…for real?

Ok, I’m not allowed to decorate my own house so I’ve decided to decorate Jose’s. So pay attention Jose. First you take that extra room of yours with the hard wood floors. Put a ceiling fan, you know one of those with the green lamp shades, in the center of the room. Pick up a couple of comfortable chairs from a consignment shop (Leather preferable, but beggars can’t be choosers), add a coffee table (I’ve got one, very sturdy and in good shape), a couple of lamps and viola…the Amigo’s Cantina smoking room. I’ll even split the difference on one of those end table size humidors that hold 500 smokes.

You see I’m tired of not having anyplace to smoke cigars. Our city is smoke free so if I want to smoke a cigar I have to stand outside or sit in my own house. I can’t smoke at home because of the wife and baby so I pretty much only smoke at matches. I would love a place to sit down and smoke a cigar, shoot the shit, drink some whiskey, and relax so Help Me Jose Gigante, You’re My Only Hope!

Oh, and the shooting and filming went great. More to come on that soon.

Going Shooting!

Well it might be January in Indiana, but I'm going shooting anyway. Jose is one of the club officers at Thunder Valley and they are having a very special shoot tomorrow. One of the local gun stores is having a camera crew come down to Thunder Valley and film a TV show. It should air on the Outdoor Channel and it will cover the 5 W's of CAS. Jose invited me along so we should have good update for everybody soon.

Keep your fingers crossed and pray for good weather.

Mod Rules

Well the Modification committee has released the SASS Firearms Covenant document and after reading over it, I think the committee did a good job. It's a bit long in the tooth and I don't think the majority of shooters give a rat's ass about this, but those that do, really, really care. I suppose I care simply because it affects the sport as a whole and I'd like to see some good come out of this to make the sport better. Time will tell.

A couple of things that make me happy in the covenant (in that oh so petty way).

"The visible contour of firing pins or firing pin extensions may not be altered."
There goes the lightning rod. I've only seen one of these and at the time I didn't think it was a huge advantage. After handling Judge's '66, I have concluded this is a major advantage because of the drag that the bolt has on the hammer.

"The only slide action shotgun allowed is the Model 1897 Winchester shotgun"
Looks like there's no love for Cap's 93/97 shotgun. At one time I said that I thought they should allow this gun because an original '93 was legal so his should be even though the internals are different from a '93. Now that all '93's are illegal, I'm less inclined to side with the 93/97, I still think it should be allowed, but not as strongly and you could easily convince me otherwise. This'll probably kill the 93/97 because the only good argument for allowing it is gone. The argument being that other guns are redisigned internally but nearly identical externally and are legal (Beretta Stampede, Taurus Thunderbolt...).

"Slide action shotguns must be centerfire of at least 16 gauge and no larger than 12
gauge."
No love for the 20 gauge '97 Cap had planned too. Darn! Guess fellas will have to find a way to toss a 12 gauge round into that '97 opening.

Other items that garner a lot of attention are the lever throw length on the rifles (4 1/8" max thank you) and the leather lever wrap. Some on the wire suggest that SASS is discriminating against women, children and slim-fingered men with the 1/4" max lever wrap. I think these folks are full of shit, you can wear a glove or hell, even deal with the fact that you have to go a half inch further, sheesh!

The one item that befuddles me a might is the legality of the XS sights. I can't figure that one out, those things look as cowboy as a Ferrari.

All in All, the committee did a good job and I hope that the amendments to the document don't get out of hand.

UPDATE: After reading the SASS wire the past two days and all the bitching, pissing and moaning going on, I have to agree with this quote from Blazing Saddles
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons. "
-The Waco Kid

Memories from the First Shoot

There is a thread on the wire about people's first shoot memories. I have a few and thought this was a pretty good topic and maybe I should write them down before my bad memory loses them forever.

Things I remember from my first shoot:

• Being nervous/anxious. After buying enough guns and equipment to get started, I still wasn't sure this was something I wanted to do. It might suck.
• On the first stage of the day, watching the first shooter (Hoot Owl Pete) on our posse load a cigarette lighter in his '97 shotgun. Hoot Owl Pete demonstrated to us that everyone is foulable and really put me at ease. Pete is one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet and I'll be forever greatful to him for helping us out on that first shoot.
• Seeing a cap and ball black powder shooter loading his revolvers while smoking a cigarette. I stayed very far away from him and thankfully haven't seen him since. Whew!
• The weather. I recall that the weather was perfect which makes anything more enjoyable.
• The "Gun Cart" we used that day. I have a hand-truck that I bungied a milk crate to the bottom and the long guns to the upright portion. It actually worked pretty well and will forever be known as "Jose Gigante's Pimp-Ass Gun Cart".
• Having the feeling at the end of the day that, yes indeed, this was something I wanted to do.

I know this has been posted before, but I think it is the best picture of that first shoot, Judge took it right before we packed up everything and went home. The smile I have on my face tells all.

Lazy days

My office closes shop between Christmas and New Years and I usually find it a nice time to get things done around the house and to reload ammo for the upcoming year. This season, however, I've been very reluctant to do much, Lord knows why, but I just couldn't get motivated to reload. Its one of those things that I really don't like to do, I don't mind the prep work of selecting bullets, powder charge, getting all the cases clean and such, but the act of sitting at the press for hours is really a turn-off. Guess I'll do it because I pretty much have to, but when I win the lotto, Its... hell who am I kidding, I'll still reload to get what I want. Maybe a trained monkey, with a shock collar...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Here's to 2005, I've had better, but I had fun too. Here's also to a better 2006.