I Finally Got One!

I remember reading about Freedom Arms .454 Casull revolvers back in the early-mid 1980s. Even then, they were very expensive revolvers and I never really held any serious hope of having one. Well, twenty-five plus years later, I finally decided to dig deeply into my gun safe and make a trade for one.

I traded a Wilson Combat CQB .45 automatic, which is no small change gun, I assure you. What I got was a solid old soldier of a revolver, that I later found out was completed on May 31, 1990. It locks up like a bank vault, and is unquestionably the most accurate handgun I've ever owned. It came with an older Leupold M8 2x scope and Leupold mount. I sort of thought I'd have to replace them, but they seem to be working just fine. I took it to the range on two consecutive Sundays. On the second one, as I was finishing cleaning it, the trigger spring broke! I figured my new pet would be out of service for at least a month or more, but I decided to take the opportunity to send it back to the factory, get an action job done on it, and have all the springs and internal parts replaced. To my amazement, Freedom Arms had the gun back to me in exactly one week, and as nice as it was before, now it's like a new gun.

I took it up today for the first time since the work was done. I had to remount and re-zero the scope, but I had the foresight to carefully record where the zero was on the boresight. I must have done pretty well, because the first round was in the black, and only a few very minor adjustments to nail zero. This gun is amazingly accurate, far more so than I am as a shot. A really good shot could hit bullseyes all day long. Me, I'm just happy to shoot such nice groups and the plentiful bulls are a nice bonus. FA set the trigger at three and a half pounds, and it breaks like a glass rod. Once I got it zeroed well, I blew the black out of the target at 25 yards, so I moved it out to 50 yards. One of the range officers told me one time that I was just about the only guy they ever see shooting at 50 yards on the pistol range. I do it with all my scoped handguns, even my .22 Ruger Single Six Hunter.

I felt really good about how I shot today. Using both the Freedom Arms and my new Ruger Super Blackhawk .44 magnum, I was able to keep every round (of the ammo the respective guns were zeroed with) in the black at 50 yards. That's quite an accomplishment for me. I'm shooting better than I think I ever have. It also makes me feel very confident about my ability to take a coyote at 50 yards or so, too. Shooting in the field is a lot different than on a range, but any hit in the black would be a kill on coyote sized game.

Just about all my shooting today was with .45 Colt and .44 Special. I did take a few .44 magnums and .454 Casull rounds, but I made no attempt to re-set the sights or scope, so I didn't really count hits or misses with that ammo. My standard .45 Colt load is a 250 grain rnfp lead bullet with 7.8 grains of unique. The Freedom Arms REALLY likes this load. I also tried another load with 5.3 grains of Clays pushing the same bullet. This also proved to be a very accurate load in the big .45 For the Ruger, I was shooting 200 grain rnfp lead bullets over 4.5 grains of bullseye. This was also a very accurate load. I had 50 rounds of 240 grain Lyman 429421 "Keith" bullets that I had really high hopes for. None of my guns have liked these bullets, and the new Ruger was no exception. But it liked the cowboy loads, so I zeroed with these and, despite a 4-5/8" barrel, it too could keep all these loads in the black at 50 yards.

I couldn't be happier with the the Casull, and the Ruger for that matter. I think some Western Maryland coyotes are going to be in for a really tough time very soon!

NASCAR!!! Martinsville, VA October 24, 2010

I finally decided to go see a Nascar race in person, so my daughter, Jennifer, and I set off on a road trip to Martinsville, Virginia last Saturday. The weather was absolutely perfect, and the race was awesome. I had some real, quality time with my little girl, and we had a blast. My man, Jimmie Johnson, placed pretty well, and I noticed a lot of number 48 caps and shirts, even though a lot of people booed him when he roared by. Jen was rooting for Dale Earnhardt Jr. (we'll have to have a talk about that - kidding). So I think we'll definitely have to do it again sometime. Probably to Dover, DE or the Poconos, because Martinsville - at 5.5 hours - is just kind of far. Nevertheless, we had a great time and I wouldn't trade the time with Jen for the world.

The Strider family continues to grow!

These Strider knives are kind of addictive. I finally added a folder, an SMF with "gunner grips" in green (of course). It's in the bottom of the picture, right below the Zero Tolerance knife that gets into the picture because it was a collaborative effort with Strider.

Reggie Jackson: Baltimore Orioles

A lot of people don't know this, but besides playing for the Atheletics and the Yankees, Mr. October also played one season with the Baltimore Orioles. The Bicentennial year, 1976, Reggie donned the bird's orange, black, and white uniform, batted .277 with 27 homers, 91 RBIs, and won a lot of votes for league MVP. Reggie wasn't finished - 76' was not the twilight of his career. His two best home run seasons were still ahead of him, so he was hardly a "has been" when the O's acquired him. Still, his season with Baltimore is now little more than a footnote in his glorious and distinguished career. The youthful, rookie, Jackson is associated with Atheletics, while the older, seasoned, Jackson is always associated with the Yankees. But he was one of ours, once!

I've had an autographed 8x10 photo of Jackson in an O's uniform for years. I bought it at a baseball card show back in the early 1980's, when it had no particular premium value. I've been offered up to $100 bucks for it, but I kinda like it. Recently while browsing ebay, I ran across a game used jersey card of Jackson - an Orioles jersey! Needless to say, I bought it and it will have a special place among my other Orioles game-used jersey cards. I suppose it's just a little bit of Baltimore history as well as MLB history, but I still think it's kind of special.

"Road Trips Close to Home" Article in August issue of The City That Rides

James and I took an 1100 mile bike trip through southern Virginia and West Virginia in June. I wrote a little article about it - a few transcription typos (grrrr!) Don't forget to click to enlarge for easier reading, enjoy!

Second half of article on "Road Trips Close To Home"

Article published in June issue of "The City That Rides" magazine:

I was really pleased to have this little article published in a local motorcycling magazine. It's been a number of years since I had an article published.