THANKS All!

For all the kind words on the holster rig...the Mexican loop for the 1911 is not a cataloged item at Frontier Gunleather. Rather, it's a design Frontier partner Matt Whitaker, himself a very good cowboy action shooter, put together and suggested I give it a try. It came out much better than I could imagine. In terms of authenticity, the Texas Rangers, earlier adopters of 1911s, typically used Mexican loop holsters with the semiautos...lots of pictures in some of the books. The hammer strap is largely inconsequential...I've got the holster tension on par with a regular Blade-Tech kydex holster, although I will silicone it with KG9 before I compete with it (probably Wednesday AM at Winter Range...I need to do a lot of dry draws this weekend before I make a final decision).

I've got a couple of easier projects queued up — a pocket holster for the Ruger LCR and a belt holster for the S&W 296 .44 Special. My "big" project will be a double buscadero holster for my competition Blackhawks, but that's a major undertaking...uhhhhhh, I also promise my Sweetie a special belt...

I had dinner with John Bianchi Wednesday night, and we talked about the necessity for having a long-term strategy for progun forces...if we don;t every specifically know what we want and how to ask for it, we're unlikely to ever get it. He's going to be pushing the NRA in that direction, and I said I'd support any such effort. We also talked about the 2010 Bianchi Cup and the NRA's push to get that match back to the match John envisioned when he started the competition so long ago. Interestingly enough, Thursday night I had dinner with Scotty Moore, my old friend from NSSF and now the director of the Steel Challenge. I did emphasize to both John and Scott that I was no longer interested in televising race guns and/or professional shooters on SHOOTING GALLERY, because my viewers have made it very very clear that they're not interested...that's the thing about ratings....hard to rationalize around them.

OTOH, in a series of phone calls on the way home from the airport Marshal, Paul Erhardt and I laid the groundworks for covering the shooting sports the way they should be covered...more about that later...hopefully we'll have announcements in a couple of weeks. I'd like to roll out the product at NRA, along with bringing the weekly video podcast‚ which is now pulling huge traffic, out of beta and into finished form.