Knife

This little knife from Gerber is possibly the best idea ever. It uses cheap, replaceable razor blades, is super small, and costs about 12 dollars. This is the third one I have owned in the past 10 years, and I don't even care when I lose one because they are inexpensive. The quality is what you would expect from Gerber: a good product, considering that it's mass produced for a low price point. Generally I keep one for a few years, then lose it and buy another. Now, you want to carry a good knife, too, for serious knife work, but you don't dull your good knife opening boxes or bags of charcoal or what-have-you. And when the blade gets dull on this one, you throw it away and replace it.

Great product.

Ammo count

.308- 116
9mm- 197
.38 special- 296
.357 magnum- 85
.22 long rifle- 500 (approximately)
.410 gauge- 80
20 gauge- 113
12 gauge- 12
16 gauge- 250

I plan on making more 9mm, and once I have about 500 rounds, I will start working on .38, and bring it up to about 500 rounds, too. I need to make about 100 or so more rounds of .357, and obviously need to buy a good bit of 12 gauge. I also need some steel shot for my 16 gauge for duck hunting. Otherwise, I feel reasonably well about my current ammo stores.

New Shotgun

I ended up with this Mossberg 590 recently. It has all the "evil" features associated with "tactical" weapons. Bayonet lug, extended magazine tube, barrel shroud, collapseable stock, pistol grip, light and laser...

I'm going to replace the collapseable stock and pistol grip with a standard stock, because it makes the safety on a Mossberg as useless as tits on a boar, but otherwise, I'm going to leave it alone. It's going to become my work shotgun, and will ride in my unit.

I kinda like it...

Photo-Negative

One of the many things I love about leather holsters (and leather in general, for that matter) is that with a little imagination, you can "see" the gun that has been riding in a well-worn one.

Leather is an amazing medium, and there is a reason that top-quality holsters and belts are still made from leather.

National Museum of Naval Aviation

On our trip to see my wife's family this week, we stopped to see the National Museum of Naval Aviation. Short version? If you are in the area, GO.

We pulled up to the gate, and since it is an active military base, there were M.P.'s at the gate, and no firearms signs. When I got to the gate, I showed my badge, and asked if they had a storage box for handguns. The MP advised that they didn't, and they didn't allow firearms on base, even though I was a cop. Seeing my badge was a Louisiana issue, he asked where I lived. I told him, and he commented that his wife was from Baton Rouge.  He then sighed and handed me a pass. "Look, man, I appreciate your honesty. Leave it locked in the car, and enjoy the museum. "

Good guy, that MP.

Anyway, the museum has hundreds of planes, representing the span of the entire history of flight in the US Navy. It is an amazing museum, and to truly experience it, one should plan at least 6 hours. We were there for 3, and didn't see an entire hangar.

Trust me, this one is worth going to.

Belts

The Other Ryan at www.tslrf.blogspot.com has a post up about belts and holsters. I have been following his blog for a while, because while I have never met him, he lives in roughly the same geographical region as I do, so his posts about choices of gear and specific survival skills are relevant to me due to their applicability to my geographical location. (I really need to add him to my side bar)

Anyway, I have a dual need for gear. What is applicable for duty use, even in a moderately plain-clothes assignment is widely different than what I need during my personal time, when I tend to carry smaller, lighter firearms and about 15 pounds less gear. I will not get into weapons, holsters or other gear in this post. This post is about belts.

With the rare exception of when I wear a true duty belt or a dress belt for court, I wear one belt. Being a leatherworker, I am partial to, well, leather. Picking a sturdy piece of vegetable tanned leather is fairly easy, these days, as Tandy Leather makes belt blanks, and uses high-quality hides. They can be had for about 12 dollars at Hobby Lobby. They come with snaps for adding a buckle, but I usually cut the snaps off and stitch a buckle on permanantly. The belts come in lengths up to 48 inches, so it's easy to get one big enough, and trim to length. These belt blanks are thick, and are about 1 and 1/2 inches in height. Now, leather breaks down over time, so it will need to be replaced every 4 years or so (mine is approaching this mark, so I need to get another one). Still, for 12 bucks, that's only 3 dollars a year.

I would literally trust this belt to hold me up, hanging off the side of a mountain, and I trust it to keep my firearm tight to my side on duty.

There are a lot of options for belts out there, but a full-grain, vegetable-tanned leather belt has a lot to recommend it. For under 20 bucks, you can have one that lasts for years with very little work to make it what you want.

Just my 2 cents.

The best Easter basket

I was remembering back today to my time spent in Florida. Our fist easter there, I was working as a store manager for a Big Lots, and I had to work on Easter. My wife wanted to go spend Easter with her family, a few hours away,  and I had to stay behind. Her Mom, Ginny,  decided to make me an Easter basket, so that Easter didn't such quite so much for me. In said Easter basket was: a six-pack of Guinness, 2 Acid Blondie cigars, a DVD of Rocky Balboa, and a pack of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

That was one awesome Easter basket. This memory bears no relation to anything going on in my life, but I was just thinking about it today, and wanted to let ya'll know how great of an Easter basket I once got.

Ginny hit it out of the park with that one.

Leather, again.

Decided I needed an IWB holster for my Kahr. I like how it turned out.

Memorial Day Range

So, I went to a private range with my friend today, and we shot a BUNCH. Part of that was shooting 140 rounds of 9mm through my new Khar. Fisrt, the gun shot great, with no failures of any kind, even when I intentionally limp-wristed it, trying to induce a stoppage. I am very pleased with this gun's accuracy and reliability so far. Secondly, the bullets I shot were some new handloads. The bullets worked great, were powerful enough to reliably cycle the slide, but not punishing. As the pics attest, HS-6 powder is a bit on the dirty side. However, the load was great in function, and shooting these loads just means that I will be more diligent about cleaning my gun upon return from shooting.

I'm pretty happy with my new gun, And new 9mm loads!

When reloading...

(Or doing anything that has the potential to go boom) if something looks wrong, stop and try to figure out what the problem is. Don't do the same thing 9 more times, expecting everything to magically get better.

After reassessing how my bullet seater die was set, the other 40 turned out like they should.