But first, an ammo check, et al.

1 -- Discounting shotgun shells, I own more ammunition than the local WalMart.   Quite a lot more.

2. --  The "value packs" of 100 cheap 12-gauge shells are back at just under $27, about 25 per cent more than the the early 2012 price.

3. --  The variety of shotgun ammunition is staggering. You can have your bird meat flavored with lead, steel, bismuth, copper, and probably a few other compounds I didn't notice.  The marketing psychology is apparent. The closer you get to one dollar per round, the better your chances of consistently splashing Canadas at 235 yards.

4. --  Chairman Bernanke's "tame" inflation to the contrary notwithstanding, a pound of Milk Bones for New Dog Libby costs $5.35 with the tax. Or would have had I not recalled that this was the price of prime beef about 18 months ago. Sorry, Sweetheart. Generics.

Achtung!

We're off to Rembrandt this Sunday morning to commune with others lusting for WW2-ish Teutonic blastenscheutzens.

Five of them, to be exact.


P-38 (AC44 code) 9MM-Nazi proofed
P-38 BYF/44 Code 9MM Nazi proofed
DWM LUGER-7.65MM Nazi Commercial  Eagle proofed
Mauser Broomhandle MDL.1896 .7.63 (circa 1931)
Mauser Broomhandle MDL..1896 -7.63 (circa 1928)


My partner in crime wants to bring home the Luger.

Probably because  Mom used to read "The Ugly Duckling" to me,  I've always always had a soft spot for P-38s. I suspect the prices will be prohibitive, but we'll see.

Lots of other shooty stuff being sold, most of it boring. I'll try to record and post hammer prices of the better items.

The Bastard King of Handguns*

It was time for a chore, pawing through the parts inventory of a deceased friend. Little on the planet will humiliate a man more. You amble through life thinking you're a pretty savvy firearms enthusiast. Then you start examining box after box and find you can confidently identify perhaps one part in 100. Toward the end you babble about whether this gizmo is for a Daisy Red Ryder or a Holland and Holland .577 Nitro Express.

I did okay on the .45 ACP stuff and actually carried away two projects. One is simple enough, a small tray of  parts which I'll try to sell for the family. The other may constitute a career.

It appeared to be about three-fourths of an AMT-frame-based  Colt Commander clone. I brought it home half-minded to try to sell it with the other parts, half-inclined to finish it up and buy it myself. That's still the unsettled state of my ambition, but the build is looking iffier and iffier.

The new aluminum frame is cut for a 4 1/4-inch barrel. The slide is a butchered reblue of  an unmarked something for a 4 and 1/4 inch barrel. Among other issues, the slide safety cut is 1/8-inch to far aft, meaning the safety can be engaged only with the gun out of battery that much. Not to mention the the barrel is .38 Super and the slide .45.

If I decide to take on the project, I'll report the geekery with photos -- not in hopes of  acquiring your admiration, merely to illustrate that there are still men who like to audition for the role of Sisyphus.

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Advertisement:   If any blog buddies are interested, the parts box holds a few GI:

triggers ... recoil spring plugs ... thumb safeties ... grip safeties ... and new  Coltish checkered walnut grip panels.  Also that barrel marked "Colt  .38 Super Match" looking lightly used.

Pricing: Check Brownell's. Knock off 40 per cent. Add about $5 for the USPS. Pay by  personal check made out to the family member, not me. Email me at  --   alongfordmick aht yahoo daught kahm.

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*Referring only to the Commanderish project, not the sainted JMB's concept and execution of the world's only really necessary center-fire handgun.

Happy Birthday, Crazy Horse

I have decided that Crazy Horse, of the Oglala Lakota people, was born in 1843.  The historians' best guesses place the year as early as 1838, as late as 1846, with the general drift in the middle of that range.  So I choose 1843 because that makes this year one of those newspaper fillers announcing a birthday ending in the "iconic" zero, in this case his 140th.

Furthermore, I have designated the precise day to be my own birth anniversary. It isn't too much of a stretch. Things got dreary in the buffalo hide lodges out in Powder River country in the Moon of the Deep Cold. After you heard the same coup-counting tales for the third time since autumn raid on the Crows, there wasn't much to do other than crook a finger at one of your wives and settle in under the sleeping robes. Nine  months later, in the Moon of the Yellowing Cottonwood, Sioux camps reverberated with papoose squalls.

I have no physical gift to offer to Curly (later Crazy Horse, also called Strange Man). Murdered at age of 34, he's beyond need of powder and lead and three-point blankets, so probably something symbolic will be appropriate.

Something honoring his memory as a three per center of his people, just as  some of us try to be among ours. Something noting that he fully accepted  and fought for the traditional libertarian life of the Teton nations. Something lamenting that it got him killed by timid and traitorous friends, even though the instrument was a blue-coat bayonet at the door of the Iron House at Fort Robinson.

Maybe I'll publish it; maybe I won't. If I do I'll title it "The Man Who Was Not a Savage."