Survived the trip…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

4400+ miles in 13 days, only problem was a windshield lost to a lug nut off a semi…

Good times with old and new friends, wandering the gun show at Tulsa, lots of time for reflection while driving…

I GOTTA do this more often 🙂

This is some “military” humor that I KNOW applies to the military, and I’m now beginning to believe applies to Gun Bloggers too!

FRIENDS: Tell you not to do something stupid when drunk
MILITARY FRIENDS: Will post 360 degree security so you don’t get caught

FRIENDS: Call your parents Mr. and Mrs.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Call your parents drunk as hell and tell them about the fat chick you tried to pick up

FRIENDS: Hope the night out drinking goes smoothly, and hope that no one is late for the ride home.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Know some wild s**t will happen, and set up rally points and an E & E route.

FRIENDS: Bail you out of jail and tell you what you did was wrong.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Will be sitting next to you saying, Damn…we screwed up…but hey, that s**t was fun “

FRIENDS: Cry with you.
MILITARY FRIENDS: laugh at you and tell you to put some vagasil on your parts.

FRIENDS: Borrow your stuff for a few days then give it back.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Steal each other’s stuff so often nobody remembers who bought it in the first place.

FRIENDS: Are happy that someone picked up a one night stand and leave them alone.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Will Low Crawl naked into the room with a camera and Hope
for the tag team.

FRIENDS: Know a few things about you.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Could write a book with direct quotes from you.

FRIENDS: Will leave you behind if that’s what the crowd is doing.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Will kick the whole crowds ass that left you.

FRIENDS: Would knock on your door.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Walk right in and say, “I’m home!”

FRIENDS: Will try and talk to the bouncer when you get tossed out of the bar.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Will man up and go after the bouncer for touching you on the way out.

FRIENDS: Will wish you had enough money to go out that night, and are sorry you couldn’t come.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Will share their last dollar with you, drag you along, and try to steal free drinks all night

FRIENDS: Will take your drink away when they think you’ve had enough.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Will look at you stumbling all over the place and say, “You better drink the rest of that crap, you know we don’t waste. That’s alcohol abuse!!!” HAHAHAHA !!!!

FRIENDS: Want the money they loaned you back next week.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Can’t begin to remember who owes who money after taking
care of each other for so long.

FRIENDS: Will say “I can’t handle Tequila anymore”.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Will say “okay, just one more…” and then 2 minutes later “okay, just one more!”.

FRIENDS: Will talk s**t to the person who talks s**t about you.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Will knock them the F**k out!!

FRIENDS: Will tell you “They’d take a bullet for you.”
MILITARY FRIENDS: Will actually take a bullet for you.

FRIENDS: Will ignore this
MILITARY FRIENDS: Will forward this to all their friends.

Since I’ve been on the road for two days, I ‘know’ I’m behind on the news and all the other crap going on, so I’m just going to comment on other blogs till I get caught up!

Most of y’all say it much better than I can anyway…

Speaking of surviving, I just realized a went over 50,000 views today!

THANK YOU ALL! I honestly never believed I’d get there 🙂

Please go read…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Brigid had a ‘situation’ not long ago- For those females (all three of you) that read this blog, make SURE you go read THIS…


For the rest- This lady knows of which she speaks, and is NOT a shy retiring violet, but this just sent shivers down my back. We all know violence is increasing and home invasions are on the rise with the increase in unemployment and current “situation”…

An example- At the gun show this weekend I was talking to an acquaintance who told me a guy he’d called a friend for years had gone off the deep end and robbed a drug store last week to try to get money to pay his mortgage while he looked for a job- He’s now in jail, his wife and kids are basically on the street, and he’s looking at hard time! It can happen to anyone…

Be careful out there…

In retrospect…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

I can honestly say that Blogarado was the most fun I’ve had with my clothes on in 20 years…


FarmFam took us in like family, and really made us feel at home. They handed me a knife and told me to get to work…

Plus I got banned from a garage for the first time in 20 years (thanks Memaw)

Farm Dad and Farm Mom went well over and above- the food, the time, the range we built, everything was outstanding.

Breda looking around after shooting steels for the first time with a huge smile going “I LIKE this”.

Christina’s ear to ear grin, and the comment “My mouth hurts from grinning”.

Snarky’s willingness to take instruction, and her smiles as she was introduced to new guns.

Salamander standing at the pistol table with a puzzled expression trying to figure out what to shoot next.

Matt getting to shoot JPG’s wedding gun!

JPG popping the reactive target with multiple ARs and smiling his quiet little smile!

Alan and his SMG!

Lawdog and Phlegmmy shooting anything and everything and smiling the whole time, and Lawdog FINALLY knocking over the last popper with the .44 Mag…

AD and Katy Beth sitting on the ground shooting together 🙂

AeJim learning how to bump fire; now THAT was an ear to ear grin…

Farm Dad standing at the pistol table saying something to the effect of so many guns, so little time!

Gay Cynic becoming more and more confident in open carry, shooting MANY pistols, and smiling the whole time.

Farm Girl coming off the M-24 after going 5 for 5 with a sly little (I told you so) grin.

The Nerds (Labrat and Stingray) and their matching wedding “rings” made by Les Baer, AND some outstanding beer (well except the bb)…

And then there was the whole 8 point buck thing… 🙂

Veterans Day…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Every time ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ have been threatened, there have been a small select few who have stood to repel that threat.


You, my colleagues and friends, have done that by your service.

I thank you!!!

Threes…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Well, we always hear everything happens in threes, and it’s happened again…


AD gets a deer with his truck, Farm Girl’s engine gives up the ghost, and I get a damn busted windshield… sigh…

That’ll teach me to take a short cut! Two $^&((@ miles from getting back on the Interstate and I get whapped with a lug nut!

How do I know you may ask? Because it left a six sided impression in the windshield! And, scared the crap outta me in the process!!!

I’m back on the road, and $336 dollar poorer, but I wasn’t about to charge my insurance. If I had, I’m sure my rates would have gone up.

FarmFam got AD back on the road today, so the only one with a dead vehicle is Farm Girl, which makes me feel bad, because this is the “thanks” she gets for the outstanding hosting this weekend.

I have to attend a number of pretty high level conferences that are “hosted” by professionals, and in all honesty, FarmFam did a better job than most if not all of the so called pros…

Plus the food was OUTSTANDING, and I now have to go on a diet… dammit…

And I’ve got a butt load of guns to clean, but I don’t mind that a bit! 🙂

Happy 234th Marines…

Posted on by March 6, 2013


During the American Revolution, many important political discussions took place in the inns and taverns of Philadelphia, including the founding of the Marine Corps.

A committee of the Continental Congress met at Tun Tavern to draft a resolution calling for two battalions of Marines able to fight for independence at sea and on shore.

The resolution was approved on November 10, 1775, officially forming the Continental Marines.

As the first order of business, Samuel Nicholas became Commandant of the newly formed Marines. Tun Tavern’s owner and popular patriot, Robert Mullan, became his first captain and recruiter. They began gathering support and were ready for action by early 1776.

Each year, the Marine Corps marks November 10th with a celebration of the brave spirit which compelled these men and thousands since to defend our country as United States Marines.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARINES!!!

Blogorado update 3…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

And for the final act…


Matt and JPG rolled in about 0400, so they parked at the restaurant to wait on us. Not being fools, we called them rather than knocking on the car window… 🙂

I never cease to be amazed at the twists, turns, tangents and flat out weird segues conversations take with this bunch… We covered a bunch of ‘random’ subjects at breakfast, starting with the Internet, sliding into newspapers, with a tangent into porn, wrapping back around to blogs, and into a discussion on the fairness doctrine. And this was in about 30 minutes…

At the range, we repainted, refaced, and everybody was back on the line as soon as they could get there. I heard a lot of, “oh, I want to shoot THAT one again.” And people were shooting much better today (or more were shooting at the same targets), because we were having to stop and reset a LOT. Christina LMT brought some coke cans (full ones) to get a more reactive target, and of course those became the prime targets. Matt and JPG jumped in with a vengeance to make up for lost time, and Matt embarrassed us all by taking out his snub nose and knocking down the plates with it…

We had one popper than just would NOT go down, until Lawdog got ticked and used Stingray’s 44 magnum on it. It didn’t fall per se, but he knocked it over on it’s side, so I guess that counted!

Farm Dad had set up a couple of longer range targets, one at 500 and one at 950 yards, so after everybody got warmed up on the rifles, Breda tried an M-14; JPG and Matt were going from AR to AR, trying the different sights and burying the 50 yard target. Stingray was also plinking the target with his M-1. Snarky and Christina LMT were both trying various rifles too! Ad and Katy Beth were shooting some of the clays and Katy Beth busted every one of them with her Cricket!

We went cold and reset to shoot some real long range stuff…

Meanwhile, Matt, JPG and Lawdog were shooting at the 500 yard barrel with PISTOLS just for fun (I swear they hit it, but we didn’t find any holes)…

The 950 yard target was a bit of a tester, as we had a 10-15 kt gusting wind that was a quartering tailwind.

After a couple of ranging shots, I got the M-24 on the barrel, shot a couple of rounds, and then we started putting folks on the gun. Breda 2 of 5, Rita 2 of 5, AD 2 of 5, JPG 3 of 4, and the winner was Farm Girl, she hit 5 of 5!!!

EDIT- Breda was 4 of 5, not 2 of 5 as she rather POINTEDLY reminded me, also I missed Christina completely, she got 3 of 5.


EDIT 2- STINGRAY was 4 of 5 also…

My list of people NOT to get pissed at me just got a LOT longer!!!

After a pick up/clean up session, we started back to town for dinner. About half way there, I see cars stopped on the road, so we pull over to find that AD had gotten a deer, only problem was he did it with a perfect 65mph trajectory with the truck…

We’re thinking the truck is toast, but it appears to be repairable fairly quickly, and the damage is not a serious as originally thought.

Nobody was hurt, except the deer, so we piled out pistols and flashlights in hand and started looking for the deer. We found it about 50 yards out in the field next to the road, and it had expired. It was a BIG 4 point (western count) or 8 point (eastern count) buck and weighed about 300 lbs. We drug it back to the road (with a couple of breaks), and waited for the authorities to show up. While we were waiting a guy from DNR drove up and told us we could keep the deer but NOT the head. AD was NOT happy…

The first on scene were the paramedics, and the female paramedic dissed AD’s deer, calling it a baby, saying she’d killed a bigger one last week!

And then the fight started… 🙂

We literally got out the tape and measured the rack, finally getting the female paramedic to admit, that yeah, this ‘probably’ was a 150 deer.

After refusing transport, they departed and this being a rural area, and us being bored, the head got duly removed from the carcass, and mounted on the hood of the truck, hat on it’s head, and cigarette in it’s mouth. About this time the Sheriff’s Deputy came on scene.

Have you ever seen someone do a triple take? This poor officer literally stopped dead in his tracks looked at the deer, looked at us, and was probably thinking oh @#^& what in hell have I walked into NOW???


Of course we are laughing, talking, taking pictures (the above pic is from Snarky) and, oh by the way, most of us are open carrying pistols…

The Deputy gets the info he required, and told us about a 40 minute wait for CSP to show up. The DNR guy came back by and took the head, and since he’d told us we could have the deer, AD took his frustrations out on the sucker, dressing him out and we bagged the shoulders, loins, and backstraps.

Matt invented a new dance, the Deer Dressing Twister- You put your hand behind your back grab a front hoof, you put your right foot on the pelvis to help spread it, and hang on while the slicing and dicing continued!

Note to self, a Sawz-all make a GREAT addition to the ability to dress out a deer in a hurry…

Now the Deputy is still on scene, waiting for CSP, so he’s walking back and forth, looking at us, etc… He finally allows as how we are an “interesting” group of individuals…

The CSP officer finally comes on scene as we are finishing up the deer butchering, and the paperwork gets wrapped up about the same time the deer gets wrapped up.

Stingray and Labrat towed AD’s busted truck over to Farm Dad’s and Farm Dad and AD will get on it tomorrow am.

We all finally rolled back into town about 2030, minimally cleaned up and headed over for dinner (much delayed, but much needed).

As we were relaxing and laughing over the incident, AD pulled out the deer’s testicles, swearing he’s going to mount them on his rifle like Stingray has done with the 20 sided fuzzy dice…

Matt finally says, “You know, if I’d run up on us, acting the way we were, I’d have been lining everybody up for a breathalyzer; figuring I’d have caught a bunch of drunks…”

Since people are departing early am tomorrow, we said out good-bys, thanked the Farm Family for hosting a VERY interesting event, and headed off to bed.

I’m sure there will be numerous posts, with pictures of all this; but I’m telling ya, somebody is going to have to go a LONG way to top this weekend… Old friends, new friends, good fun, LOTS of trigger time, and smiles all around.

It just doesn’t get any better than this… Sigh…

Now I’ve gotta go back to reality…

Blogorado update 2…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Well,, it’s been a LONG day… I was too busy to take pictures, but there were plenty taken!


Breakfast was ‘supposed to be’ at 0900, but we really started about 0800, with people straggling in until we had to move to a ‘private’ room…

In case we got rowdy…

We caravaned out to the range about 10ish, and the unloading started, and kept unloading and loading…

We had 4X8 tables for rifles and pistols on their respective ranges, and quickly ran out of room, so the late comers had to stick stuff under the tables!

We had- multiple 1911s and variants, BHPs, 9mms, .40s, .22s, .380s, Colt and S&W wheel guns in 357, 44 Magnum, .22 (and those were just the ones I saw on the table…

AR-15s and variants, one AK, lever actions in everything from .22 to 30-30, M-1s, M-14, M-40A1 and M-24 in .308, and a few more I just glanced at…

Snarky and Christina LMT, being new shooters, had PLENTY of coaches (gee, I wonder why), and people were going up and down the line going- “Here, try THIS one”…

All I saw were smiles as people shot different guns; and for some, like Breda who had never shot steels or poppers, the immediate response was, “I LIKE this!”

Oh yeah, Breda also shot her first tin cans today, and so did a few other city folk…

Phlegmmy and Lawdog got there about noon, and jumped in with the rest of the crowd, and the ohhing and ahhing continued. Phlegmmy got to shoot a Python and came off the line saying she HAD to have one of those…

Suffice to say, Lawdog CAN shoot too… Run from him, you will just die tired…

AD and Katy Beth shot together and at one point we had three people on the line shooting the poppers and the plates and cleaning up when someone missed!

Alan brought out his subgun, so some folks went off and shot it and quickly learned muzzle rise IS a fact of life…

Over on the rifle side, it sounded like a small war was going on, so obviously people were having fun. After a great lunch (gotta love those brisket dogs), everybody kinda swapped places, so the rifle shooters moved over to the pistols and we moved over to the rifles.

Again, smiles ALL around… And then somebody decided they wanted some reactive targets on the rifle side, and out came the tennis balls…

About five people were all trying to shoot the balls at the same time, and at least once, I heard “Hey, I was trying to hit that one!” “Well, so was I, and I got it first!”

Again the trading off and on the different guns, and Breda tried Alan’s National Match AR-15. She was hitting a reactive half size torso target out at 238 yds, which replicates a 500 yard shot. People were on and off the sniper rifles (remind me NOT to get Lawdog mad at me…)

Breda wanted to try it, so we put her down on the rifle, and folks I will tell you she is a GOOD shot! She went five for five on the reactive torso on a gun she had never shot! I’m not gonna piss her off either!!!

Lawdog, AeJim, and Farm Dad shot the sniper rifle, as as one of them said, it got boring with a ‘good’ rifle. then AD got on the gun, and I told him what Breda had done; he looked up at me, and said, “Oh, no pressure huh?” My answer, “Nah, no pressure”… 🙂

He did pull a five for five though!

Another split and some folks went off to shoot some trap, and a friend of Farm Dad who had been watching decided he’d like to try a rifle. Since he was in a wheel chair, we put him on AeJim’s AR with an EOTech sight. He shot offhand, and did well, including popping the reactive torso offhand!

AD and Katy Beth came over, and Katy Beth shot her pink Cricket .22 and hit the water bottle target, much to everyone’s delight!

AeJim came back mumbling, saying it was pretty bad when he got outshot with his own gun…

It was getting late, so we put some Tannerite down range and had Phlegmmy, Christina and Breda shoot at it (of course we DIDN’T tell them what was in the cup). Breda hit it, it exploded, blew the barrel over and Breda looked up and asked, “Did I hit it???”

We all died laughing, and then explained that yes she had (now I’m REALLY not going to get her mad at me).

It was getting on to dusk, so AeJim took his AR and shot a magazine of tracers at the barrel, to the ohhs and ahhs of all.

Pick up and clean up was followed by caravaning back to Farm Family’s house for dinner; including an “interesting” appetizer, followed by home made Chicken Fried Steak, mashed potatoes, and gravy.

I’ll let others post about the “interesting” appetizer and certain people’s reactions to them…

And then the stories and jokes started, suffice to say, a fun time was had by all, but the crowning moment was AD giving AeJim a lap dance… You had to be there to believe it!!!

As usual, folks were in chat at the same time, comments, multiple conversations, the Atomic Nerds beer supply was significantly diminished and general relaxation was the order of the evening…

Matt and JPG called, they will be in tomorrow am, and we’re gonna do this all over again! Also tomorrow we should have a .50 cal, and a few more ‘interesting’ guns showing up…

Blogorado update…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

The shooting range is in 🙂


After spending the morning touring the town, and visiting the Museum/Library (well Breda IS a librarian after all), a good lunch, and a few quick clothing changes, it was off to ride horses…

Farm Girl was going to get everybody rides that wanted one; since I’ve ridden a few horses over the years, AeJim and I pulled off with Farm Dad to go set up the range. Thankfully there were only the three of us, since we’re all qualified RSOs, we spent at least an hour looking at sight lines, backstop/berm, distances, etc…

And THEN the arguments started… 🙂

We finally ended up with two separate ranges, separated by a berm with a pistol range going out to 20 yards, and a rifle range going out to 250 yards. We built the plate rack, target backers, dug the poppers in and safety checked all of it, then built and placed the target backers for the rifle range.

This is a shot of the pistol range, paper targets to the left, poppers in the middle and plates to the right. I’m standing at the 20 yard line…


After we finished, we headed over to the riding area, but they had finished, so it was back to the range, for everybody to get a look (and critique our work). And realized there was an extra truck in the parade, AD and his daughter had pulled in!

Then it was back to town, watching a beautiful sunset as I drove, and no I’m not posting my lousy picture of it; then dinner (oh man, I’m stuffed)…

You can go to Snarkybytes and see a MUCH better picture than I took…

Blogorado is up and running…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

The gathering has begun…


1981 miles and I made it, only to get stopped 10 miles short of here by a State Trooper, and honestly, he had me cold…

Luckily he was a nice guy, and knows Farm Girl, so I got a stiff warning (after we spent about 15 minutes talking guns and shooting)… It didn’t hurt that AeJim and he both knew people in common.

Since we were the first to roll in, Farm Dad and Farm Mom put us to work from the git go; prepping the brisket and pork butts for dinner, but since we were cutting we also had to taste test 🙂

DAYUM, that was some good brisket, pork, and ham and beans, and cornbread, and some mild salsa, and cheesecake brownies. By the time dinner rolled around, I was already full…

Farm Girl and Snarky got back first, closely followed by Christina LMT, Gay Cynic, Alan, the Atomic Nerds, and Breda. Christian and Gay Cynic won for the longest drive (20+ hours) so far. And the nerds brought beer, which naturally had to be taste tested!

We were all pretty tired, but everybody settled in the garage and the snark started flying. It was funny that at one point at least 6-7 people were in the chat while simultaneously talking in the real world, and pictures were being taken, and food being eaten, and Farm Gram was saying I have a perfectly good house in there… 🙂

More people will be arriving tomorrow, and today will be the horse riding for those who choose, a museum tour, and some of us get to go put the range together…

And to add insult to injury, we all just got banned from the Gun Blogger Chat as bots, since there were five of us signed on from the same IP addy at the hotel… Just lovely….

More later…

Sadly, the events at Ft. Hood are front and center on the news today- Please keep those folks in your thoughts and prayers.