Vintage home-made gun porn in 12 gauge

In 1913, Taft was president, the Uruguayan Air Force was founded, rapists in Washington decided they had the power to tax your income, and Riverside arms patented my gun.

Chances are it's provenance is common.  A Depression farmer sold a couple of fat hogs, , went to town, paid the village hardware merchant about $15, and took her home.  After an appropriate period of admiration around the deal table in the kitchen, it went on two nails over the back door with a box of 12-bores handy, probably No. 6, but maybe No. 4. That was about the only ballistics discussion that interested Zeke -- which was best for pheasants, jump-shooing mallards, and discouraging city-slicker strangers messing around the home place.

Sometime later he benefited from the Ever Normal Granary and took his subsidy check back to town for a fancier gun, probably a double, maybe even a pumpgun. The old single moved to the barn for  rapid response to rats, foxes, chicken hawks, and skulking strangers.

Every once in a while he noticed the pigeon decorations and brushed them off with a gunny sack. He got along in years, slowed down, didn't get out to the barn much. His kids couldn't be bothered, and the ol' one-shot moldered away until, about  Y2K,  it turned up at the memorial service most cherished by too many of his survivors -- his estate sale.

It brought $30 from a fool who just likes walnut, however cracked and dinged, and blue steel, however rusted and pitted and scarred. He'll fix her up and shoot her, but mostly he just likes folk-guns and their propensity to stir his muse to perfectly plausible stories of the past.

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This one was bad enough to demand rule breaking. The metal suffered a wire wheel. The walnut was heavily sanded and linseeded, cracks epoxied, deep dings filled with walnut sanding dust and glue.  The innards were scrubbed with gasoline before cursory polishing. For no better reason than whim, the barrel was bobbed to 18 1/4 inches, turning her from full choke to straight pipe.

(Twelve or 14 would have been handier or at least cooler, but our man had a personal connection to Vicki Weaver of Coalville, Iowa, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho. Fear moves him to obey even pointless laws. Wimp.)

Before the final finish --yes, flat black from a rattle can -- the question of sights arose. The solution was "no."

The plausible story of the future is a 3 a.m hipshot requiring minute-of-thug accuracy down his short, dark hallway. Sights would be superfluous, maybe even dangerous, maybe snagging the flap of his union suit.

He knows the odds of any such thing happening are all but prohibitive, but just in case, nothing better at hand...

There is no such thing as a boring gun.

In lieu of 911

If I were a guy bent on a little housebreaking or other mayhem, I think I'd stay away from Cindy's lair. You know, Jinglebob's Cindy, out in cow country. :)

Domestica -- ammo and other incendiaries

-- The wood faerie returneth. My cup of renewable, sustainable biomass fuel runneth -- rilly rilly runneth -- over. My city man has just delivered a small load of bucked elm locust and plans to bring another. The stuff is unsplittable, but I can cut it short and burn it like chunks of coal.  I am this morning grateful to the administration of my village, Smugleye-on-Lake.

-- September song: With the windows still open to a light breeze, a small fire furnishes a corner of warm comfort amidst all the fresh air.

--Maybe the good mood is a hangover from the long evening in Reloading Central. The Redding B3 powder measure -- a sturdy cast-iron '40s or '50s relic -- is back online and throws IMR 3031 in dependable charges.  Besides...

--The Pacific case trimmer, of similar vintage and brutishness, has been tidied up and is ready to work as soon as I find pilots in .223, 257, 6mm*, .357, and .45.   I've never used it, and there was bonus delight in finding that standard RCBS shell holders work fine. Besides...

--  Several hundred rounds of brass have been resorted into several containers which match one another in size, style, and color. Enough of this kind of neat-freak compulsion and I'll be ready for a  Better Homes and Gardens spread.  Disclaimer: it happens seldom.  To wit:

-- The living quarters are a disaster. When BH&G is finished in the loading shack, a visit from the Hoarders film crew is more than possible. Example:It is not gracious to use the Stihl chain saw manual as a trivet. Gotta find my apron.

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*That's .244  in real money, by jingo.

New faces

A couple of additions to the blogroll.

Stainles of Sportsfiirngs caught my attention by reporting his pleasure in finding a Skeeter Skelton book. Anyone who likes Skeeter is to be admired even though memories  of his gun-journalist home, the old Shooting Times,  arouse my disgust with with the current crop of news-stand firearms rags. (My carbon-fiber reinforced polymer is way cooler than your wimpy ol' plastic!)

Welcome, too, to Stephen, an  entertaining fellow who seems to be a genial an/cap for all seasons. Guns, food, bikes, camping. All the good stuff.

Edit to add one more good guy: Mojave Desertrat who this morning suggests that the Kate exposure really isn't all that big a deal.

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I had read a lot of Skelton before hooking up with an AP colleague in Denver who  became a mulie hunting buddy.  (How ya doing, Bob K.?)  A Texan, he knew Skeeter at least slightly, and may (damn a fading memory) may have gone shooting with him a time or two.