crimsonlonghorn

Dammit I need me some Jeff. Hurricanes are better with Jeff. FML

It looks like Jeff isn't on periscope anymore and has moved over to a subscription site? Still on twitter though. https://twitter.com/Jeff_Piotrowski/status/1431673756888535046?

This close to dove season, I guess people will buy whatever they can find. That said, all three of the Academy stores near me had several flats of Estate brand for sale in 12 gauge #7.5 and #8 the last time I was inside. And lots of individual boxes of Federal 20ga #8. I prefer #9 for skeet but #8 works in a pinch.

This is what the SG Ammo guy wrote in his newsletter this week. I didn't realize how much in "western" calibers was being imported. Standing outside the CD door, but not actually going in, I wonder if the Biden Admin might see this as a feature and not a bug.

It would be an improvement if that happened. Damn thing is rickety and scary as hell.

All of the models this morning are pointing at Louisiana. The center is going to form further north than everyone original thought and it's going to take a straight line across the western tip of Cuba straight to New Orleans. Supposedly.

18z GFS is even further east.

Here's the 12z Euro. Pretty much identical.

Deja vu from almost exactly one year ago. Straight at Galveston and then a turn north at the last minute to Lake Charles. Gotta feel bad for them if it verifies, I was driving through there about a month ago and there are still a lot of blue tarps on the roofs. All of the models are clustering around Louisiana this morning. (recognize that it's still very early)

Latest GFS has moved north towards the Euro this morning and takes it up the Rio Grande. A month ago I would have loved this possibility for south and west Texas to get some heavy rain, now it will ruin the shit out of the dove hunting right before the season starts.

Everything on Ammoseek appears to be up by 10-20% today. I bought some Federal 270win 140 grain earlier this week for $1.99 per round. Same stuff today is $2.40 from the same seller. Damn.

Very excited for hunting season. My uncle passed away in February and my aunt sold me their country homestead because she wanted to move back into town (Snyder, Scurry County). 20 acres for the immediate homesite and another 800 acres of jointly owned family land surrounding it on two sides. Sad not to have my uncle around anymore, but excited to be able to keep the land and the house in the family. My brother has kept a feeder out there for several years behind the farm house. My uncle, who was housebound in his later years, loved looking at the pictures that would come in from the camera. He called them his "house deer" and they were (still are) off limits. There are several doe and fawn pairs that come by daily, along with some pigs as well. However, the first buck of the year showed up this past week: As did a couple of coyotes: And I think this is a dove taunting us in advance of the opener next month:

My favorite handgun I own is a totally impractical Sig P320 full size in 45 ACP. Goddam hand cannon that holds 10+1 rounds. It's too big to be concealed on the body or in the car, but damn it's a sweet gun to shoot. You feel like a movie star just blasting away with that thing. Also fits into my big mitts perfectly. FYI - Because I'm still nouveau riche and spend too much money on toys, I'm seriously kicking around the idea of a Wilson 1911 in 45. Totally unnecessary but just feels really cool.

When I first got into guns, I bought me a 4" 357 magnum S&W 686. Thought it was cool and macho but I couldn't shoot it worth shit no matter how much I practiced.. Can shoot 38 pretty well, but the 357 is just a pain in the ass and I've quit trying to shoot that gun. Much prefer 45 ACP if I need a bigger handgun than 9mm. Come at me bro, I know I'm being a weak loser poser and I don't care.

LOL. Me too.

Thanks. And I'm back to judging others as well for trading their long term health for a donut. Nature is healing, just like my O2 levels.

Agreed. This was a risk I knew was possible and I drew the inside straight and got covid pneumonia and now I'm going to have to heal for a few weeks. It happens. I was asked that question a lot in the hospital and to everyone's credit there, NO ONE judged. All the doctors and nurses were very respectful.

Did not. Having some second thoughts on that but still wrestling with it.

Thank you. Been home 48 hours now and I already feel miles better, but it's going to take a while to get back to "normal". Just hate sitting on my ass. Need to be more active than this.

Spent all of last week in the hospital with Covid thinking I was going to die. Now I'm home and getting better all I want to do is get off my ass and go shoot something: clay targets, pigs, coffee cans. I don't care. Bought my uncle's ranch back in July and had plans to spend all of August working out there and moving ammo and guns. Instead, I'm sitting here struggling to breathe all day long. Gonna be a while. This sucks.

Anything new from Academy would fit your needs, but the most important thing I would advise would be to hold some money back and take it to a gunsmith and have the stock fitted and adjusted. Very few people can accurately shoot a stock-dimension shotgun right out of the box, especially if they are taller or heavier than usual. This cannot be emphasized enough. I would generally recommend a Citori or Beretta but unless you intend to shoot 10,000+ rounds per year, most cheaper guns will hold up just fine. Here are some options for you. https://grabagun.com/cz-redhead-premier-22g-28-blk-wal.html https://grabagun.com/browning-citori-725-field-black-walnut-20-gauge-26-inch-barrel-3-inch-chamber-2-rounds.html https://www.academy.com/shop/pdp/browning-citori-cxs-20-gauge-over-under-shotgun-115122163?sku=20-gauge https://www.academy.com/shop/pdp/yildiz-lineage-20ga-28o-u-shotgun?sku=20-gauge-28 This is the real bargain, FWIW. Don't be afraid to look for something used and order off the internet if necessary. It's very very easy to do. https://www.gunbroker.com/item/902402238 All that being said, for the same amount of money, I would always recommend a semi-auto for hunting. I own a few $10,000+ O/U guns and my go-to field gun for dove and quail is still a 20 gauge Remington 1100. One advantage for someone in your situation is that the structure of a modern semi-auto lends itself to being self-adjustable with shims and thus more customizable without having to go to a gunsmith.

Recognize that it sounds like I am complaining about having to go on vacation (poor me) and on some level I guess I am, but there is definitely a Wife Angle to the story I have. Last year during covid at the last minute the family decided to drive to Gulf Shores. We were able to find a rental and liked the house so much we decided to go back this year. Back in January I made a reservation for the last week of July, which fit our schedule very well, being between the end of one son's summer baseball season and the other son's start of HS football practice. I like going to the beach and have been looking forward to this trip for a while. In April, older son and I find out that our favorite coach at Colorado State is having his track and field (i.e. discus) camp again this summer after being canceled in 2020. We decide to go. Don't want to fly anywhere right now, so we are going to drive up on Thursday, attend the camp, then drive back home on Monday. 2 days in the car, 2 days at camp, then 2 more days in the car. The camp was last weekend (July 10-11). Mrs CL decides she wants to go to Colorado with us. OK fine. But then right before we leave she says, "Why don't we stay a few days in Colorado and have a vacation? Seems a shame to spend all that time in the car for just a weekend." So we end up staying in Colorado for the whole week and a trip that originally was going to be around a $1,000 all in (camp fee, hotel, gas, etc) expanded to about $5,000 after an extra hotel room for both boys for a week plus more meals and more gas driving around up there (A gallon of regular is now almost $4 in Denver, btw), plus hiring the pet sitter for a week. We got home last night and start talking about having to leave again in a week. Mrs CL says, "Wow! We're really blowing the budget on vacations! Too bad we can't cancel Gulf Shores now. We probably shouldn't go on two vacations every year. We probably should have skipped Colorado." I point out that she wasn't originally invited to Colorado, that the original trip was just to attend the camp, and that Gulf Shores is supposed to be our "real" vacation anyway and all the money we spent in Colorado was her choice, not mine. Tone was not appreciated.

Thank you. They talked me into upgrading the wood at the very end and I'm glad they did. Sent me pictures of blanks via email and I just picked the one I liked the best. It was easy to tell the difference between "SC1" base-level wood and "SC3" wood. My only regret is that I had intended to go to Italy to get fitted in person and pick out the wood but the travel restrictions right now prevented that.... I still wanted the gun so I just sent them my measurements from Larry Feland and they seem to have converted OK into metric because the gun fits pretty much perfectly. I sold my company a year ago and made a little coin, so this was my "trophy" from that experience. I'll probably never buy another gun as expensive. But this one is pretty cool.

So excited about this. Guess it’s in line with the other inventory observations people have been having lately. Nature is healing!