Oklahoma State - Day 3

We started with bracket matches in the morning, and of the Louisiana crews, nobody could find the target.  It was a fast 2X match, and before I knew it, I had collected my two Xs and was done shooting for the day.  So, I did what we do in that predicament.  I helped out, running the line, hand-judging, and generally trying to make myself useful.

There's one shooter, Parttime, who wears big hats.  Akarate Zach decided to make a stack of hats and attempt a Parttime immitation.

It was a great shoot, put on by great people, and I want to thank the Green County Gunslingers for putting on a fine event.  It was a success in every way.

Belle, Zach and I went back to the hotel room and crashed.  We've arisen at this point.  In just a few minutes I'll pack up this computer and we'll start packing the van to return to Louisiana.    We'll be back at work tomorrow, and tackling another project.  Belle and I have  fast-draw club to build.

The F-4 Phantom

Reader John shares his photo of an F-4 Phantom.

Those flew out of our local AFB during the '60's and I've always thought that the Phantom was one of the coolest, mot evil looking aircraft of the era.

Thanks for sharing, John.

Oklahoma State 0 Day 2

Sixty-Four shooters from nine states congregated  in the arena at the Creek County Fairgrounds, Kellyville, OK to decide the Oklahoma State Championship.  

Major D is out after seven rounds.  I couldn't find the target for the first three rounds, and it was looking pretty grim, but I managed to stay alive till the seventh round.

Belle is out after four rounds.  She really had trouble this morning,  I bought her a laser practice cartridge, and maybe she'll find it useful.  She's been jonesing for one for a couple of months, and there was a vendor there willing to take my money.

Akarate Zach was out after six rounds.  In the fifth round, he had the unfortunate experience of launching his ejector rod downrange.  The ejector rod on the Ruger Vaquero is notorious for getting loose and launching downrange.  Fortunately, we were able to find the spring and the screw, and it's all back together now.  I'l watch it close tomorrow, and when we get home, put a drop of Locktite on that screw.

I had a blog reader come by, and I got to chat with him a few minutes between matches.  I introduced min to Okie Ed and Fancy Nancy, and they gave him some printed information.  It was very cool to meet Shim, and I hope to see him again.

Tomorrow is the bracket matches. All the scores are loaded in the computer, and the computer takes you second-fastest time to assign a bracket.   It's a lot of fun, and it's a way to give the folks who are out of the main match to shoot  on Sunday morning.  So, tomorrow, we're alive again, and the bracket matches await.

Tonight is the banquet, and luckily, it's next door to the hotel.   Thant's extremely fortunate, as Major D is drinking red whiskey right now, and I'm told that it's illegal to drive drunk in Oklahoma.  I'll walk over to the restaurant.

See y'all on the line.

Oklahoma State - Day 1

We found the arena this morning and went in for registration and equipment check.

That's my gal in the picture above  We've competed equipment check and are waiting for the shooter's meeting.

We shot categories today, which is an age-based competition.  We didn't cover ourseves in gory, but we didn't embarrass ourselves either.  Today was a good warm-up for the main match, which will begin tomorrow morning.

That's Akarate Zach, hanging out with Okie Ed, one of our hosts.

Tomorrow is the main match, and we're in the hotel room getting ready for a good nigh's seep.

We Have Arrived

We're here (wheverthehell "here" is).  In the motel.  The last 50 miles were in a hellacious thunderstorm, with associated tornado warnings.

Screw it.  I'm going to have a drink and go to bed.

Oklahoma State

Working the list, getting things ready.  Belle is taking off at noon.  Zach takes his lat final today and should get home about noon.  Hopefully, shortly thereafter, we'll throw the bags in the van and head north.

The shoot is in Kellyville, OK, just south of Tulsa.  Google Maps tells me 7.5 hours. roughly.  We'll see how that pans out.

Gotta get busy..  Lots of stuff to do before noon.

For The Infantry?

The tank museum I understand.  Monkey World must be for the infantry.

17 Cents?

It looks like the House Ways & Means committee in the Louisiana Legislature wants to hike our gasoline taxes by 17 cents.  Really??

Opening a late session controversy, a House panel Tuesday narrowly approved a bill that would raise Louisiana's gasoline tax by 17 cents per gallon, increasing state aid for roads and bridges by $510 million annually.

Yeah, it appears that our state Highway Dept has been pissing away our money for many years, and now they've decided that they need more money.

The bulk of the new dollars – about $260 million per year – would go for state priority projects, including "mega" plans like a new bridge across the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge for more than $1 billion.

Yeah, that's what we need, a new bridge in Baton Rouge.  We've been spending money on the roads in Baton Rouge for twenty years that I'm aware of.  The road network in Baton Rouge should be pristine.  Every time I drive through that hell-hole, they're working on the roads.

What Louisiana needs is a nice four-lane highway across the center of the state.  From Natchez, MS, westward toward Texas.  Nothing like that currently exists and I don't know of any plans to build such a road.  Hell, the state just built a new bridge across the Mississippi river at New Roads, and there is no real highway network to make use of.

I agree that the state has kicked the can down the road for too long.  It's easy to put-off transportation work.  We've been doing it a long time, and it is the fault of every politician since Huey Long.

When you get out of the big cities of Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Shreveport, the Louisiana road network sucks.  The politicos have been pissing away our road money for too long.  Both Texas and Mississippi get the same road money that Louisiana gets and their road network is much better.

Maybe what Louisiana needs instead of new taxes is new politicians.

Cimarron El Malo

Surfing around early this morning, I went over to Cimarron's website to look at cowboy guns and found something that looks promising.

The Cimarron El Malo.  The documentation in the box says that it is made by Elle Pietta and imported by Cimarron.  It comes in a variety of calibers and barrel lengths.  The one under the link above is is .45 Long Colt with a 4-3/4 inch barrel.  This caliber is required for CFDA shooting and the short barrel is preferred by a variety of shooters, but this model also comes in the longer barrel lengths, to include the 7.5 inch.  The MSRP is $544.74, but it can be had cheaper.

What I like about this particular model is the hammer-mounted firing pin.  That, of course, requires a load-one-skip-one-load-four routine like the old Colt system, but that hasn't been a problem for knowledgeable gunners since 1873.

Grabagun has it for $465.98 in the short barrel and $447.83 in the long barrel.  It's interesting that the long gun is several dollars less expensive than the short gun.

Here's a YouTube video that gives an out-of-the-box look at the revolver.



The octagon barrel is a nice touch, and Belle likes Pietta revolvers.  Both of her competition revolvers are Pietta's.  They seem to be holding up well, and   The Pietta frames seem just a tiny bit smaller than the Uberti, and the scale tells us that the Pietta is several ounces lighter than the Ruger Vaquero.

I do like the looks of that revolver.  If I find a few spare dollars, one of those might end up in my spares bag.

Another One Gone

In 2001, the Taliban destroyed historical monuments, to the disdain of the whole world.

In late 2016, ISIS destroyed historical monuments, to the disdain of the whole world.

Last night, Mitch Landrieu took down an historical monument.  Mitch is the Democratic mayor of New Orleans, and takes down monuments to historical figures that don't match his current politically-correct worldview.

I'll leave my readers to draw the proper parallels.

Wood Ducks

Sitting at the house yesterday in the twilight enjoying a bourbon I was considerably surprised to see a wood duck whistle past and pitch into the little lake that we live on.

"Wood duck" I said to Belle.
"How do you know?" she asked.
"I just know."

The sight took me back thirty years.  I was sitting on the swing at my house on Bayou Derbonne, early on a Sunday afternoon in January.  My wife had just asked what I thought we should cook for supper, and while I pondered the answer, a pair of wood ducks whistled over the house and went down in the bayou across the road.

That bayou was about a hundred yards from the house, across a small asphalt road, across a muddy bean field, lined with mixed hardwood and bald cypress lining the banks.

I stood from the swing and went inside, retrieving my upland shotgun.  It was a Stevens 311, an inexpensive double-barrel.  I plunked two shells into the barrels and went outside.  "I'll be right back."

Crossed the road, jumped the ditch and slogged across the muddy bean field.  I stopped in the edge of the trees and watched the surface of the bayou, looking for ripples in the still water.  I took two steps, and heard wings.  The two ducks jumped from the water and I swung on them.  Pop!  Pop!, a left and a right, and I had two ducks down in the bayou.  There I stood in muddy sneakers, jeans, and a flannel shirt.

There was nothing to do but go in after them, so I put the shotgun down and waded in after them into chest-deep water.  Then I headed for the house, cold, wet, muddy, with supper in my hand.

Dinner that night was roasted wood duck, with rice, gravy, steamed broccoli and cat-head biscuits. Not a bad supper for an afternoon's work, even if I did have to wade for it.

I wonder if someone hung a wood-duck box on the lake.  They are in no danger from my shotgun, but it is nice to see them late in an evening.  The sight takes me back to good times.

Goblins Down

It looks like some Houston goblins picked the wrong victim when they decided to do a drive-by.  The goblins fired over 40 rounds, but the homeowner was able to retrieve his AR-15.  He killed two of them and sent the third to the hospital.



I'd say that the homeowners practice time on the range was time well spent.

Well done, sir, well done.

We Need A Cop

I tried to make the point last week, but I may have failed to be clear.  Let me not make that mistake again.  We need a cop running the FBI.

Michael Walsh writes a great post mortem at PJ Media.

Let’s cut right to the chase: James Comey should have been fired immediately following his disastrous press briefing last July, in which he candidly laid out the case against Hillary Clinton over her mishandling of classified information and then refused to recommend charges. Overstepping his authority while radiating sanctimony, arrogating power while clumsily intervening in the election, Comey deserved to be sacked on the spot.

When I watched that presser last July, the first thing that came to mind was that Comey was trying to lawyer his way through a cop's job.  He said words to the effect that no reasonable prosecutor would take the case, and that stunned me.

It's not a cop's job to worry about prosecution.  The job of a cop is to examine the evidence and satisfy the elements of the offense.  Every offence has elements, those parts of the law that tells an investigator that a crime has been committed.

That's not to say that a cop doesn't want to get it right.  He wants the prosecution to succeed, but once the elements of the crime are satisfied it becomes the prosecutors job to get the conviction.  If the cop does his job right, the prosecutor gets a case that is nearly ready to go to court.  The cop and the lawyer might work hand-in-hand on building a good case, but the lines of responsibility are clearly drawn.

Comey blurred those lines.  Which is why a lawyer is the worst possible choice as the head cop at the head cop-shop.  And, I'd bet that there are several very capable, very qualified cops who would be willing to take the Director's job at the Bureau.

Sheriff David Clarke, of Milwaukee comes immediately to mind.  From all indications, he's a great cop, with a simple message, and a strong sense of right-and-wrong.  I'm sure that there are dozens of guys around the country, capable administrators who understand the difference between a cop and a prosecutor, who could rebuild the reputation of the Bureau, give it a renewed focus, and serve the people of the United States honorably.

All the President needs to do is find that person.