Sunday, June 20, 2010

Sunday@Home

Got in from Deadwood Friday evening; shot a cowboy match up in Ft. Collins yesterday morning. All in all, it went pretty well. Had one stage where I forgot my Model '97 is strictly blunt trauma and worked the pump like an 870...didn't fully eject the hull. Then without looking I tossed the shotgun down on a table where, perversely, the empty round slid back into the chamber as the action closed neat as a pin. Leaving a fired round in the chamber is a penalty. So it goes...

Next week is the last push week in my hellish spring travel schedule — GUNSITE for a Ruger product introduction (and, yes, you'll see it on DRTV first!), then to End of Trail in Albuquerque for a couple of days until it's the Custer battle reenactment in Hardin, MT for the weekend. We're out of Billings on Monday. Luckily, our flight out of Billings is late enough to allow us a quick trip to the Mother Church of Cowboy Hats, Rand Custom Hats in Billings. Titch says he'll be in town and maybe we can grab a quick lunch along with a new hat. COWBOYS/SG Producer John Carter is actually frothing at the mouth. Probably the hat I wear the most os Ritch's 147 Sporting Clays, my go-to hat all summer and fall (although, to be totally honest I've been wearing the Colorado Mountain Hat Company copy of the Herbert Johnson "Poet" I had them make up for me. I like it enough that I might see one of Ritch's Western Fedoras in grey in my future.



I have to confess to a new pair of boots from a cowboy shop in Spearfish, SD — a pair of tall Ariat Hoolihans with ever-tasteful purple tops. I bought them in the morning and spent all day in a rodeo arena blowing up balloons and moving cones for mounted shooters. Seems like a fair break-in. I wore them yesterday, and they're getting there. I mean, they're never going to be Lucchese, but they don't cost like Lucchese, either.

In Deadwood I ran into Dan & Julia Schwarz...really nice people and just magnificent custom bootmakers from Montana. Check out their custom boot gallery and weep, mortals! I would kill to take their 2-week custom boot-making course...we'll see how the year shakes out...2 weeks is a long, long time in my world. Still, who else woudl do Wile E. Coyote boots?

5 comments:

  1. Is Ruger announcing a small LCP-like 9mm pistol? Please, please, please!

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  2. I second the hope for a good (and cheap) 9mm pocket pistol.

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  3. Moosejaw4:56 AM

    that hat would look good with the rest of the zoot suit...google Pachuco, circa 1940s.

    Hey a LCP in 9mm would be great...but lets make it a .40 S&W instead....

    ...Why is it ok to unload your revolvers but an empty case in a shotgun is a procedural?

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  4. I think Ruger ought to take the lead and bring out the LCP in 22 LR. They would sell one to at leat 1/2 of the folks who bought the LCPs as trainers and the gun would also sell as a fishing/camping/hiking gun.

    The gun would have to be a bit different, likely a frame mounted barrel and pure blowback but if it were the same size and same trigger mechanism, it should sell like hotcakes.

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  5. Anonymous10:43 PM

    Ummm, did we miss the Ruger announcement? Searched DRTV and didnt find anything (but then again my search fu is weak).

    My thinking is that an intro at Gunsite would lead one to believe a 1911 is in the works.

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