Today's Cowboy Match...

...in Wyoming with the Cheyenne Regulators was my second clean — no misses! — match in a row. This gives me some confidence in bumping up the speed a bit and take a few more risks. Was a very good match, and it was great fun shooting with COWBOYS and SG producer John "Picyune" Carter, director of photography Gene "Grizz" Moffett and my Sweetie, who also had a very good match. We had a GREAT posse!

Meanwhile, The Firearms Blog wonders whether Beretta is getting ready to roll out a velociraptor whacker with their Xplor ad.

Well, works for me, but I'm obviously twisted when it comes to Big Boomers...plus, I'm up for the Jurassic Park solution to the shrinking population in the midwest...cook up some dinos and let 'em rip!

And if you can's wait for Beretta, NeanderPundit has just the ticket (and I gun I was immeditaely seized with gun lust over), an Italian 45-70 double rifle:

Let me talk a little about my love for doubles, for a moment.

I have, since I was old enough to remember, loved fine rifles, and especially doubles. I had read ‘Use Enough Gun” at the local library at ten or eleven and was hooked. I started my collection of firearms, the first firearm I ever purchased, was a double shotgun. I took it afield and took shots at birds, imagining i was Ruark, holding a fine english double on the ear-hole of a grazing elephant with tusks the size of my calves. I looked at every book that had guns in it. I read every article about double rifles I could find. It wasn’t exactly an obsession, but no double ever escaped my gaze. From the 9.3×74r cartridge in “Snows of Kilimanjaro” above, to the 450 nitro express in “Ghost and the darkness” I lusted after fine doubles. Figuring I’d never have one, I looked constantly at large bore bolties and single shots,. and have been looking at a Ruger #1 in 458 Lott or an Enfield 1917 in 416 Rigby. I’m a recoil junkie anyway, and these just seemed fun.

Amen, brother! Why I have a Ruger #1 in 450/400 3-inch Nitro Express. And $4K for a double seems imminently fair (and attainable) to me. For an extra grand you can sign up for my good friend Jim Clark of Clark Custom Guns newest blaster, a handbuilt double rifle that can be had in a number of calibers, including 45-70 and 450/400. Jim called me up a couple of weeks ago to fill me in on the project, which he tipped me off to at the NRA Show a couple of years ago. Now this gun would be an heirloom!

Clark Double Rifle