Monthly Archives: March 2026

Ooops I did it again

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11

“How do you accidentally buy a gun?” is a perfectly reasonable question. I’ve mentioned it here.

Made the mistake of walking into a gun sho pon my lunch hour yesterday. The guy behind the counter is starting to recognize me because a) I have an SOT which means he’s more likely to make a sale to me than to someone who has to go get fingerprinted and photographed, and b) I almost exclusively buy used guns, which they often have on consignment at a rather big bite.

We get to talking and he’s telling me of some full-autos he has for sale, including a freakin’ Lewis gun and an FNC. He also has some MAC-10 type full -autos. I told him that while the only thing there that might interest me is the FNC (but not at over $20k) but what I’m really after is a full-auto Uzi. After talking machineguns for a few minutes I asked what he had I might like. Interestingly he pulled out a Browning copy of a Winchester High Wall in .45-70 with a Badger barrel on it. Beautiful gun but not really practical for me. A Belgian Mauser? Meh. Ruger PC Carbine? AH…lemme see that.

Just a plain Jane Ruger PC carbine in the crappy factory stock. It was only a few dollars less than what I could order  a new one for. I need a better deal than that, Is it a consignment piece, I ask? It was. So I said call the guy and tell him I’m a buyer at [20% less than what its priced at}, I figured the guy would say no and that would be that.

TL,DR: I just ordered an ODG Magpul Backpacker stock for my new Ruger 9mm carbine.

Muddy

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15

A friend of mine said that they felt a little bad for me because the last few times I tried to get up to the Beta Site I had to bail due to road conditions. I replied that I wasn’t feeling bad about it at all. Each trip out there, even though it failed, gave me tons of information for later use. This weekend was more of the same…try and fail.

The amount of mud that was on the road was epic. I actually slid of the road and into a muddy borrow pit. Fortunately I was able to get back onto the fudge sundae that was the road without too much difficulty but it was a white-knuckler there for a while.

As the elevation increased, the mud decreased until we were back on snowy/slushy roads. Ok, so far so good. The big problem is this steep, sloping switchback. Last time it was a sheet of ice that very nearly punched my ticket to Sto’Vo’Kor. This time, I got out at the bottom of this treacherous stretch and walked it first to see what I was in for. The road surface was slushy ice, which was, in my opinion, traversible, with a set of chains. Fortunately, I had brought a set….the product of previous lessons learned. What I did not have, however, was time. By the time I would have chained up and gotten on my way it would have been too late in the afternoon to get anything done without risking having to come back in the half-light or dark. So…again…not this trip.

But, lessons are learned. I’m learning the conditions of the road, where the trouble spots are, what can and cannot be expected to work, etc, etc. Next trip will involve the side-by-side. I’ll bring along chains for it, as well as my unstuck gear, and we’ll see hwat happens.

Most people I relate this tale to tell me that clearly I need to expect to simply not be able to get to this property in the winter. I nod politely and agree, because I really don’t feel like explaining to them that I need to be able to access my property at any time of year under any circumstance. Heck, thats why I bought the side-by-side and thats probably why I’ll wind up with a snowmobile as well.

I’ve also mapped out the areas to start from if I want to walk in. For example, I know that it is exactly 1.75 miles in a straight line from that switchback to my property. And I  know it’s exactly two miles from a different, easily accessed point. This summer one of my projects is walk those routes to I know what to expect.

Why haven’t I taken the side-by-side up there yet? Well, there’s a bottleneck. The side-by-side gets to the general region of the Beta Site on a trailer. That trailer needs a place to be safely stowed when Im not using it…and that would be my fenced yard. But I can’t put it in the yard until I get my fence guy to come in and put a gate into my fence so I can secure the trailer and side-by-side when Im not using them. So…I need the gate so I can get the trailer so I can get the side-by-side to the general region of the property.

The fence guy came today and says he’ll have some ideas and pricing for me by the end of the week. We’ll see. In the meantime, to err on the side of caution, I’m off looking for a good set of chains for the side-by-side as well as investigating the options and pricing for a replacement set of wheels with studded tires.

So, lessons learned and I’m better prepared for next time.

Mundane gun stuff

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10

I picked up a Thompson Encore package back in December at the Hamilton gun show. For reasons that make no sense, I’ve always liked the little single shot Contenders and the Encore scales things up to take real rifle calibers. Play your cards right and you can make a very lightweight rifle. For example, I have a Contender carbine in a Choate stock with a 19″ .30-30 barrel and it barely weighs five pounds.

The package I bought last December was for a .50 muzzleloading barrel and a 7mm Rem. Mag. barrel. I had no use for either barrel but I did have use for the Leupold scopes that were on them. I figured sooner or later I could wheel-n-deal into something I wanted. Today was that day.

First up was a 26″ .308 Win. barrel.  Very useful since I can  hunt pretty much anything with it, it shares ammo commonality with my CZ .308, Ruger Scout, Mauser FR8, and a half dozen PTR-91’s. But the other barrel…a 16″ .357 Mag barrel that is threaded. And since I have a few 9mm suppressors laying about this will make a delightful little suppressed backpack gun.

For whatever reason, the guys who made the barrel threaded it at 5/8-24 rather than the usual 1/2-28. I’ll order up a 5/8-24 tri-lug adaptor and this thing will get used with my Rugged Obsidian.

So….one barrel leaves, two more enter.

And, since it was the weekend, I figured I’d try and head up to the Beta Site but I was foiled by still-snowy conditions and, contrarily, some absolutely horrible mud. Post on that later.