For Sale 2

Back in Ye Olde Dayes, I had a Browning A5 Sweet Sixteen, and as I was loath to add to the already-extensive caliber proliferation in Ye Olde Ammoe Locquer, I found a deal on a Spanish cheapie side-by-side at a gun show (back when one could still find such deals), and laid in a small stock of 16ga ammo.

I want to get back into sporting clays here locally, and birdshooting with Mr. FM, but now I’d rather shoot 20ga than 16ga.  So:

For Sale — Churchill (Kassnar) 16ga SxS, double triggers, 2¾” chamber, 27″ barrels — $150:

As you can see, it’s in NRA Condition “Wretched”:  worn bluing, dings in the stock, etc.

 

To make up for its pitiful condition, I’ll throw in some cleaning brushes and swabs:

…and also 125 rounds of various ammo types because I won’t need them anymore:

(Frankly, I think the ammo is worth more than the gun, so look on it as ammo + free gun, or gun + free ammo.  Either way, it’s a decent deal.)

Aside:  I actually thought I had more than that, but the rest turned out to be a over two hundred rounds of 20ga — yeah, I have still more ammo for a gun I don’t even own (yet) blah blah blah.

N. Texas residents get it hand-delivered, all others need to add the usual shipping and processing fees.

Emails preferred (kim@) from interested parties.


Update:  $old, very soon after the post went up.

Getting To Know You

So here I sit with my newly-acquired S&W Mod 65:

…and because I’ve not owned a .357 Mag revolver for lo these many years, of course I had to check out the ammo on hand.  (Yeah I know, I had ammo for a gun I didn’t have — like that’s never happened to any of you, don’t get me started.)

Actually not too bad, considering.  About 100 rounds of “self-defense” (i.e. hollowpoint 158gr killer-diller stuff) the shortage of which I shall address when time and wallet allow, but I can get by with that, certainly. As for practice .357 ammo?  About 500 rounds of the Winchester White Box 110gr.  Little light, there.

So off I went to look for said White Box practice ammo via Ammoseek… and holy shit!  Are you kidding me?  $2.40 per round??????  Two dollars and forty cents every time I pull the trigger????  Looks like the lightweight 110gr stuff may become my backup “self-defense” load — and yeah I know, the little 110gr pill doesn’t do well in ballistic gelatin etc. etc. yadda yadda yadda because even though it absolutely screams out of the barrel, there’s not enough mass to penetrate deeply enough to satisfy the Death Brigade Cognoscenti.

Anyway (after I’d got my heart working again), after browsing Ye Olde Internette a little further I found an old friend:

Still spendy, but in the current climate, not excessively so.  [20,000-word rant deleted]

“Okay, Kim:  why the lightweight stuff (125gr) instead of the proven (and cheaper) 158gr?”

Because if I know anything about the K-frame S&W revolvers like the 65, it’s that you can beat them up badly shooting lots of heavy .357 mag ammo through them.  And I plan to shoot lots because I’m out of practice shooting a meaty revolver cartridge.

Yeah, I know:  I can practice with .38 Special (no need to buy more of that, no sir), but I follow the old adage:  practice with what you’ll shoot.  And while the 125gr bullets aren’t the same as 158gr bullets in terms of recoil and such, they still have that little .357 snap!, more so than an ordinary .38 Spec, even the 158gr ones.

Comments in the usual place, please.  I welcome them all, because it’s been a long time since I shot the .357 Mag, out of any gun.

Oh, and for the many (!!) kind people who have written to me with offers of gifts of components, I really have no plans for getting into reloading, but thankee most kindly for the offers all the same.

FOREIGNERS?

Ordinarily, I’d be apoplectic about a bunch of foreigners buying a storied American company, especially one such as Colt, makers of fine (and a couple not-so-fine) guns since the nineteenth century.  I mean:

 

 

 

 

 

…and I think you get my drift.  A bunch of foreigners taking over this heritage?

Well, I was nearly about to have an RCOB Moment, when I further learned that said foreign company was actually the equally-storied CZ (Česká zbrojovka), whereupon I felt much better.

Nothing wrong with CZ (a.k.a. Brno) guns, either:

 

…and let’s not forget their rifles;  ooooh, their rifles:

 

Quite frankly, Colt Industries has got up my nose on many occasions (“Screw the civilian market”, “We’re not going to make the Python anymore… oops, okay, we’ll make them again, just not as well”), whereas CZ has seldom if ever perpetrated the same kind of nonsense.

I am cautiously optimistic about this takeover, but long experience has taught me that the road ahead may often not be what I’d like it to be.

But if CZ decides to move Colt manufacturing out of gun-hating Connecticut to their new facility in Arkansas while promising to keep or improve the quality thereof, I for one will applaud them.

Rip Hyphen Off

So Combat Controller and I went to the Fort Worth Gun Show over the weekend, and ugh.

I was looking for the stolen replacement Boomershoot rifle, and he was looking to sell a couple guns — more on that in another post.

I also needed a little ammo because that story to come later.

Ammo at gun shows has become the world’s largest ripoff.  What’s happening — and I had this confirmed by a secondary source later — is that ordinary guys are snapping up all the cheaper ammo from retail outlets like Academy, then turning it around, marking it up to nosebleed levels, and getting a table at a gun show to sell it at retail-plusplusplus prices to people who don’t buy their ammo online or who don’t know the difference.  (25 cents per round for CCI Blazer .22 LR, and don’t even ask about hunting- or self-defense ammo:  okay, the cheapest .308 Win I saw was running at $1.75 per round.)

All this in addition to the Biden/Harris-Panic gun- and ammo buying that’s going on anyway.  I estimated, by the way, that if you had the money, you could probably have put together from parts about a thousand AR-15s from what was on sale at this one show.  (And you’d need a PILE of money:  Palmetto State AR-15 lowers which cost $59 a while back were being sold for $379 by the asshole ripoff artists merchants.)  One guy boasted to CC that he’d made $40,000 in cash sales before lunch — and by the way, I saw a WHOLE bunch of “Cash Only” signs, at almost every other table.   Even if you want to sell a gun, the merchants will try to lowball you, then mark it up at least 50% and put it right back on their table.  There are no bargains to be found at gun shows anymore;  you may as well buy retail from your local Merchant Of Death.

Bottom line:  Stay away from gun shows.

Furniture

I have often said that a .22 rifle is not a firearm, but a household appliance and should be treated as such (e.g. Aisle 6 at Walmart, no 4473 no nothing except maybe proof of age over 16).

However, the “guns as household items” concept can always be stretched, as this man proves:

As I said to Combat Controller (who sent me the pic), at least it’s just a Norinco SKS, so no harm done.  Had he done it to a Garand or similar, he might well have received a few visitors — and not prospective buyers, either.

Funny as hell, though.  Almost as funny as this video…

News From Austin

…where the Texas Legislature is doing the People’s bidding:

Earlier today, the House approved Senate Bill 19, by an 86-60 vote, that discourages banks, payment processors, insurers, and other financial services providers from discriminating against members of the firearm and ammunition industries. The legislation prohibits businesses that engage in this practice from contracting with governmental entities in the Lone Star State. Taxpayer dollars should not be used to benefit the bottom-line of corporations that are actively working to erode the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Texans. The measure, a priority of Lt. Governor Patrick, now goes back to the Senate for consideration of House amendments.

Hubba hubba.  And if this passes, and one of those bastards ever tries to mess with my gun purchases or anything like that, it’s to the TxAG’s office I’ll be sending my next email.