Eight Days 'til GBR!

There are many good reasons to attend the Rendezvous next week in Reno; here are a few:
Meet SFC Toby Nunn, who will be representing Project Valour IT;
Win a Leupold Scope!;
Or maybe a Glock;
A Venturi Air Rifle;
A High Point 9 mm Carbine;
Tour Cabela's, Reno;

Plus lots of good times at the range and visiting with bloggers, shooters, and industry reps. Sign up now if you haven't done so already! Click here for the GBR site, and let Mr. Completely know you will be there!

Loading and Unloading Your Semi-Auto Pistol; Courtesy of Ruger Firearms

There are many good points in this video; watch it a few times to let all the lessons sink in, especially if you are a new shooter. Lori Petoske, whom you see at the beginning of this video will be Ruger's representative at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous next week, just one of many good reasons for you to go to this grand event in Reno.

Monday....Groan.

Back To The Old Grind!

Weekend Steam: Labor Day Weekend Choices

The front end of September has several steam and gas engine shows for enthusiasts to visit. Top draws in the Midwest are Pontiac, Illinois (Click for website),

Rollag, Minnesota (Click), and....

Mt. Pleasant, Iowa (You know what to do.).

Click Here for a list of all the September shows from the Farm Collector Directory.

Here's Something You Don't See Too Often In Illinois...

Tailhooks. You should have heard these babies come over my office as they came in to land at the Fairfield airport. We're talking Wright Cyclones here, over 1400 HP.

This was the first time I had seen a T-28, and two of them, no less.

The pilots stopped off to refuel as they flew to Offut AFB in Nebraska for an airshow.

They said they are the same vintage as the airplanes; 1955, or thereabouts. (click) (click)

Go here to read about the outfit they belong to.

You can see them at Offut this weekend, so if you live nearby, hit the road to see some beautiful machinery.

Crankin' It Up

Here is a fiddle record from 1924. The Girl I Left Behind Me was an old song then, but you still hear it played today in the right types of gatherings. This is played by Patrick Gaffney as you would have heard it played at a dance, that is basically, the same thing played over and over again for the dancers. Fiddlers today commonly put together a medley of fiddle tunes for audiences who seek listening pleasure, not a square dance.

September e-Postal Match

You're sipping your coffee early one morning, and as you look out the back door, you see your favorite rooster about to do battle with a pack of coyotes that has invaded your farmyard. He's a tough rooster, but he's no match for a coyote, so you grab the nearest shooting iron and let one fly to stop the attack, and follow up with a kill shot. To shoot this match, CLICK HERE to download the target. Shoot once offhand (one or both hands), then once with a support, at each coyote. Use any type of improvised rest which simulates resting against a doorframe or window ledge. This can be a monopod, bipod, shooting bench, side brace, etc. A touch will count for three points, and a solid hit (Half or more inside the line) counts as five points. Hits on the chicken house count as one negative point. If you goof and hit your rooster, well, take the family out for a chicken dinner. At least the coyotes didn't eat him.

Shoot this contest at 25 feet with a pistol, 50 feet with a rifle, and 15 feet with a smooth bore BB gun. If you must shoot at different distances at your shooting range, provide the distance with your target scan, and I will adjust your score proportionately. (Shoot with a rifle at 300 feet, and your score will be increased 6 times.)

Classes

Handguns:

Class I: Rimfire with iron sights

Class II: Rimfire with optics

Class III: Centerfire with iron sights

Class IV:Centerfire with optics

Rifles:

Class V: Rimfire with iron sights

Class VI: Rimfire with optics

Class VII: Centerfire with iron sights

Class VIII: Centerfire with optics

BB, Airsoft, and etc:

Class IX: Iron sights

Class X: Optics

More: You shoot it, and I will score it!

Scan or photograph your targets and e-mail them to: Truebluetravelinman (at) gmail (dot) com

If you have difficulty with Google Documents, e-mail me, and I will send the pdf directly to you.

Please send your entries in by midnight, September 30, 2010.

You have one more weekend to shoot the August contest, so if you have not entered yet, take both targets to the range this weekend. Make it an outing for family and friends, and have a good time shooting.

Every entry in Mr. Completely's e-Postal contest is eligible to win a $50 gift certificate from Cheaper Than Dirt, so take several guns with you to the range and enter multiple times to improve your odds!

UPDATE:  We have had a request for an extended September contest, so you can shoot this contest through the first weekend of October, and submit your target on Monday or Tuesday.  I will be compiling the results as they come in.  Save The Rooster!

TWO WEEKS!!

The countdown is getting short to Gun Blogger Rendezvous V. Click over to the GBR site to read all about it, register with Mr. Completely, and book your room at the Silver Legacy. Lots of activities are planned that you do not want to miss, so get off the fence and sign up!

Early 4 Wheel Drive

This Massey Harris General Purpose tractor is a good example of the progress during the early years of the changeover from horse farming. Four wheel drive didn't catch on for many years after early examples like this one, and I suspect the the steel wheels were the primary reason.

You could dig a tractor into a hole pretty fast with lugged steel wheels, and burying both ends of this iron beast would be an experience that you would never wish to repeat. Rubber tires were such a great improvement over steel in providing traction that farmers did not clamor for all-wheel drive. Dual wheels came into general use during the 1960's. Articulated all-wheel drives and front wheel assist came along after that. It is common to see six or eight wheels pulling now in row crop country.

I suspect that the more complicated machinery of four wheel drives like this one scared away many potential customers who were just learning how to operate gasoline powered farm equipment. There are universal joints or a CV joints hidden in the front axles, and a farmer who grew up with horses and steam engines would be intimidated by the thought of working on this assembly.

I think one of these would be just great for dragging logs out of the woods. Loggers used to use two wheel drive tractors before skidders became common, and this four wheel drive looks like it would be much better than a conventional tractor.

Mack And Masseys

I made a flying trip over to Pinckneyville, and spent a couple hours taking pictures and video. The featured tractor this year was Massey-Harris, and there was a bunch of Massey machinery. This vintage Mack does a pretty good job of upstaging its load. Lots of hobbyists get into tractor collecting because it is (mostly) not a "Rich Man's Hobby." Tractors take a few more bucks now than they used to, but the trend I see is that money has showed up, and it is being put into fancy rigs to haul the tractors. The good thing is that you can still get into tractors and gas engines at just about any level of spending.