Ruger's Auction To Benefit Youth Shooting Sports Alliance

Ruger's auction this week is an extremely rare 10/22 built as a race gun at the factory.  Ruger's Description:  "We have for auction a 10/22® “Ruger Race Rifle” with a unique serial number, RRR-01192. This rifle was most likely a distributor special as this model did not appear in the Ruger firearms catalogs or price sheets. The rollmark date for this 10/22 is April 20, 2005. The rifle features a brown laminate thumbhole stock with a barracuda-style forend and a black rubber buttpad. Other features include a “Ruger Race Rifle” grip cap, a 20” hammer-forged, target-crowned blued barrel and target trigger. Included in this auction is a 10-round magazine, Picatinny-style scope base, and an appropriate locking device."

This fine rifle sells mid-day, Wednesday, August 7, 2013.  CLICK HERE to visit Ruger's GunBroker page to place your bid.  100% of the proceeds from this auction will go to the Youth Shooting Sports Alliance.

Tuesday Turbo Boost

Ahead Of Its Time

Metropolitans never gained the popularity of VW's, but they were pretty common fifty years ago, and you still run across one every so often. This one was at the Boonville steam and gas engine show. The bad thing about these is the unit body. If they rust out, you don't have much to work with.

The interior looks really good, but that speedometer seems a bit hopeful for the little four-banger. Metropolitans have been popular in movies; not quite as much as Model T's were during the silent era, but pretty close. Do a search for movies with Nash Metropolitans, and you will at least be surprised, if not amazed. I remember seeing a movie on TV when I was a kid, that was located in Berlin, and involved some kind of business with Coca Cola. There was a really wild chase scene through Berlin with one of these, and I remember an East German border guard being handed a bottle of Coke, knocking the top off, and drinking from the broken-topped bottle. The music behind the scene was the Sabre Dance, but darned if I can remember the name of the movie. It was funny then, but I was around ten years old.

Well, what do you know?! They made these with a hybrid option!

Grinding News Pet Owners Can Use Any Day Of The Week

Back To The Old Grind!

Don't Be Like That. Learn To Crank It Right Before You Get Hurt.

We watched these fellows at the summer Boonville show, and we walked away hoping that the engine would start without hurting someone. Tractor magnetos have an impulse, which fires the plug after top dead center when you are cranking, (antique cars have a manual advance/retard lever) but if the impulse doesn't work right, the engine can fire before top dead center and pull your face down into the radiator, or jerk the crank out of your hand, spin around, and break you wrist. Keep your fingers and thumb on the same side of the crank; pull the crank from the bottom of its swing to the top (called a Quarter Turn; 1/4 of the combustion cycle), and stand so your arm will escape the arc of the crank if it jerks loose and spins around. I have been lucky and never had my arm broken when an engine kicked back, and that crank really gets your attention when it spins around like a helicopter. If the engine kicks when you are pushing down on the crank; well, it's going to hurt. Have fun, but remember Safety First.

Don't Shoot, Just Whisper

I parked on the shoulder at the end of the gated driveway.  The gate had a 'Beware of  Dog' sign, so I called the house to ask about the dog before I got out of the truck.  The lady said, "Just talk to them.", so I got out and talked to the dogs.  No problem.  These are Pit/Lab mix, and they were just tickled to death to have a visitor who wanted to talk to them and rub their ears.  I have had close encounters with strange dogs for most of my working years, and I have not been bitten yet.  I have only had one dog who wanted to bite me, and she had puppies on the porch.  I exited stage left and made a safe getaway.  The biggest pet problem I have when calling on landowners is turning down all the cats that want to go home with me.

Part of the weekly news cycle in recent years is family pets being killed by police who are making contact with householders and their families.  Sometimes it's done by cops performing mundane activities like writing  parking tickets; sometimes it's done during a SWAT raid when all the cops are gussied up in protective suits  that would turn most dog bites.  Bloggers complain about these regular abuses of deadly force, but the MSMs don't care, and the trend continues.  It is clearly a cultural problem going on in police leadership all over the country, and I think it began decades ago with the federalization of local and county police departments. Cops have obviously been desensitized to killing our four footed companions; that had to come about through personnel management policies and training. A recent confirmation to that is the discovery of shooting range targets with children and pregnant women.  The targets are being used by DHS to end hesitation in shooting "non-traditional threats."  Given the success that training has had in convincing cops that it is OK to kill family pets, we should be nipping these new training scenarios in the bud, and then rolling back the trend of cops killing dogs.

Not My Victrola: The Way You Should Hear It

Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy was recorded several years before the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band did this song, and the song's not complete without hearing Teddy.

Weekend Steam: Boonville, Indiana

The Mr. Completely August e-Postal Match Is Up At Carteach0!

Carteach0 is hosting the August contest, and it appears to be as simple, yet challenging, as the July target.   Click Here to read the rules and to download your target.  Carteach would like to have your scores in by the end of August. 

July e-Postal Scores Are Up At Billll's Idle Mind

The July scores are up over at Billll's Idle Mind (Click); this was Billll's first time hosting Mr. C's monthly shooting match, and it was a good contest.  It was also a first for me, because I finally managed to make all the points on one of my targets (It was close, though).  Good thing for me that Mr. C didn't get one in, because he would have figured a way to make 25 points.

Really big news; my little brother Chester the jeweler has entered his first match, and he did pretty well.  He takes after our mother (Bea) and he shoots a .45.  I see that Danno and his son both shot the match with a Single-Six, a favorite of mine.  I have been neglecting my Single-Six of late because of cataracts.  I shoot much better sighting through glass nowadays, and have been letting the iron-sighted guns rest.  My eyes aren't bad enough for surgery yet, but it is a frustration.  Danno, if you haven't installed a lighter trigger return spring on that Single-Six, unhook one side of the factory spring before your next range session.  Jeff Quinn at GunBlast.com calls it a Poor-Boy Trigger Job, and it will put your trigger pull between 2 and 3 pounds.

The August contest will be up shortly over at Carteach0.http://carteach0.blogspot.com/

Many Thanks, Billll, for hosting a great match!