Reloading note

No matter how cheap they are, resist the impulse to acquire any GI .30-06 brass made in Denver in 1942 (Den 42) . I have fought government primer crimps and tight pockets for years, usually with enough success to create good loads with only moderate effort using a simple reamer with a radius grind.

No so this stuff. An hour of trying put me in a foul mood for most of the afternoon, and I finally dumped about 300 of them in a low spot I'm trying to fill over by the maple trees. It's almost as if they were re-specked with remarkably undersized pockets.

Also and more happily: It is very pleasant to run across four decks of large rifle primers you forgot you had.

Put the lawyers to work

I don't wants months of senators and other political creepy crawlies scoring points for the teevee audience off whatever it was that Goldman Sachs did.

I want prosecutors drafting criminal charges. I want a grand jury to indict for fraud if it sees fit. I want a trial. And then I want to see the guilty GS executives manufacturing gravel, one sledge swing at a time.

A bit of oversight responsibility is probably inherent in the legislative process, but a lot of justice has been buried under bullshit which is the sole ingredient in most congressional "hearings."

Dear President Obama,

I wonder, Sir, if you are attending to today's economic thermometer?

Our domestic stocks are tubing because, our experts report, the entire Ouzo production of Greece and all the of Portugal's best Madeira will not suffice to pay their kings' debts, and the folks who lent them money are getting more than a little (a) anxious to be repaid and (b) fricked if they'll ever loan money to one of them again.

If fact, lenders are starting to wonder about sovereign debt in general. That's, you know, like fronting cash money to nations.

Anyway, that just reminded me I just wanted to ask you to keep up a very good front in front of Chinese persons you happen to run across. I'd get pretty nervous out here if they decide to Greece us.

'course, I wouldn't dream of cramping your style by asking you to help make sure we start buying only what it can pay for. I mean health care and war and nations to build and like that.

Your Nervous Pal,

Jim

P.S. -- It is okay by me if you want to blame three or four of the guys who had the job before you for some of it.

Old gun serendipity

A while ago I put up a bad shot of an old H&R "The American Double Action."

I finally started putting it back where it belongs this morning, and for some reason stirred the box of old partial guns ( plus gun parts I can't identify).

Lo and behold, I find I have a second YADA, identical except for barrel length, and it seems to bear all the parts the other one is missing. I feel a half-day in the shop coming on to meet my urgent need for another ancient revolver shooting an obsolete, barely available, largely useless, and ruinously expensive caliber for which I have neither brass nor dies.

EDIT: Fuggitaboutid. No trigger spring. But it looks good on the wall.