"Windage and elevation, Mrs.Langdon. Windage and elevation..."

— John Wayne

The Undefeated

Talk about sleeping like a rock...I closed my eyes early last night and when I opened them it was 9AM.  Am tending toward feeling human again after a week of my road infection...couple of more days at the range and I'll be back to normal, such as it is. 

I've been wrestling with my left-hand cowboy shotgun issue...to wit, since my right eye crapped out I've had to flip myself over, so to speak. Most of my focus in the last couple of years has focused on getting myself up to speed with the handgun — right hand, left eye. I'm now feeling pretty comfortable with that, and the speed's starting to come back. Left-side with the long guns has been a bit tougher, but the rifle is also coming along pretty well.

The bear has been the shotgun. I first threw a shotgun to my right should when I was six years old, when, much to my grandfather's delight, I knocked some hapless songbird out of the air. There have been, as you might imagine, quite a few repetitions since then. I've been trying to catch up with my left side.

I used a '97 pump in cowboy action shooting, a Chinese version overhauled by Coyote Cap. single feeding the pump, either over the top cowboy style or rolling from underneath SWAT style is the fastest way to keep a shotgun running forever (and, in effect, a better system than ultralong tubes...I had an 8-shot tube at a GUNSITE class, and the deal was keep the tube filled all the time...got just a speck heavy...easier a side bag full of shells and the ability to keep thte gun running forever).

Sadly, there were no left-hand Winchester '97s, so my standard style of reloading over the top with my weak hand doesn't work. I've been experimenting with different loading styles for the '97 (Holy Terror uses one that might work), and, if all else fails, there's always the double.

Still, I love trick guns, so I got hold of an 1887 Winchester lever action replica (actually, a gun Coyote Cap built for my old friend, the late China Camp). Of course the most famous '87 is the one Arnold used in T2: Judgement Day, and darn, he made it look so easy! I gotta tell you, this thing kicks like a living, breathing mule! And that's in 12 gauge...I can old imagine that the 10-bore, the standard caliber, was a real whumper-thumper.

I'm assuming it's a stock design issue, but it makes one pine for those old Remington reciprocating barrel recoil-operated thumpers.

The lever action itself is pure blunt trauma, more like some device you'd use to crankstart a Curtis Jenny biplane than lever a shotgun sell into the chamber. A must-have accessory is a leather wrap around the forward part of the lever, because otherwise in fast levering a slip of the trigger finger places it in line to have the trigger itself driven right through the finger...hey, it has happened!

The guns are a hoot to shoot....if you get a chance, you owe it to yourself to put some rounds downrange through an '87 (go for UltraLights rather than, say, #00 buckshot). I've been working on dropping two rounds into my competition-modified gun. When it works, it's chain saw fast. When I don't do it exactly right, I'm left looking like a poorly trained organ-grinder's monkey.

I'm getting there, though!  I'll keep you posted...

Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and  Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) Introduced long overdue legislation to reform and overhaul the BATFE...It'll be a bear to get through this Congress, but I'm glad to see us on the offensive in any arena. BTW, Mike Crapo is one of the very few politicians who is exempt from my general distaste of pols — a nice guy to hang around with!

Here's an interesting piece from the Brillianter blog on mental conditioning for self-defense. It echoes Col. Cooper's Principles of Personal Defense, but is a pretty good expansion and worth reading. Here's an excerpt: 

Disregard the irrelevant. Mindset is less about adding attributes than it is about stripping away the irrelevant. Most of our daily lives are spent focusing on things that don’t really matter. Paying the rent seems really important, unless you put it up against something like breathing. Embarrassment, fear, and other emotions are just that - emotions. Get back to thinking about the mechanics of the situation.