Home Again

Got home about 4PM.  Another great Rendezvous, thanks to the efforts of Mr. Completely.  There will be a couple more updates once I get all my pictures and the (very) few videos I took uploaded, but let me start you with this one – the four fastest times from the steel shoot on Saturday, at least from the people who actually turned in their score sheets:


Jaci and Robert were drawing from the holster, Derek was drawing from CONCEALMENT. I was shooting from low-ready, but I was shooting a REVOLVER.  Yes, I am VERY happy with how I shot the Smith that day.

The guys from Gunauction.com brought professional-quality video and still equipment and there promises to be some really good coverage from them on the GunNews.com site that I will be stealing borrowing or linking to when it goes up.  I’ll also be writing about my conversation with David Smith, the guy from Gunauction who wrote that “We want your blog” email that caused such a fuss.

However, tomorrow comes early and I have to drive 101 miles back up to Phoenix in the morning, so this is it for me today.

0-For-8

Gun Blogger Rendezvous VIII is winding down.  The pizza dinner and prize raffle was last night, and once again I didn’t win a gun.  However, Crimson Trace really came through in the prize department this year.  I got one of their Railmaster universal-mount green lasers, and a certificate for anything in their catalog.  I also found out that I had the best aggregate time in the steel shoot for the day (the two actual competition shooters either didn’t shoot the course, or didn’t turn in their timesheets.)  Not bad for an old guy with an iron-sighted revolver.

I’ll have much more to report, pictures and links later after I get home.  Now I need to finish packing, go get breakfast, and then launch some bowling balls WAY the hell downrange!

Seriously, y’all need to come to this thing next year.

GBR Day 3 – And a Blast is Had by All

Just got back from the steel shoot, where I’m quite pleased how well I shot my S&W 327. I loaned my new(er) Kimber Target Match to the guys from Gunauction.com, along with my 3/4 full .30 caliber ammo can of reloads. The three of them burned through around 400 rounds, and the gun ran fine all day except for a little bit of user error on the part of one of them who is new to all of this (but is a natural, once he got the idea).  An empty ammo can later, and lots of smiles all around.

I’ve got time for this post, a quick shower, and then it’s time for pizza and door prizes, and the raffle benefiting Soldiers’ Angels.

Now don’t you really wish you were here?

GBR Day 2

I’m in the Hospitality room with a crowd of bloggers and vendors (pictures hopefully to follow), blogging from my iPhone (which sucks as a blogging tool, but hey, it’s what I’ve got.)  Had a great breakfast provided by the NRA, a GREAT day at the range, and now it’s Show-n-Tell. Tactical Solutions has brought one of pretty much everything in their catalog. I want one of their 10/22 barrels!

Blogging like this is painful, so I’m going to stop now and listen to the presenters.

GBR Day 1

It’s 5:15 PM and the first day of GBR is underway.  Just got back from the Roop County Cowboy Shooter’s range where they’re holding a major shoot this weekend, but were more than kind enough to let us step in and shoot some of their guns and ammo.  I got to whack some 400 yard steel with a very heavy-barreled Remington rolling block in .45-70, and some closer steel with a lever gun chambered in .50-100-450.  They even let me play with my 16″ stainless Rossi 92 chambered in .45LC.  But any day where someone lets you shoot their guns with their ammo is a good day in my book.

Bill from Daily Pundit got in the first post of the day from the site.

Now I need a shower and back down to the Hospitality room!  Don’t you wish you were here?

RENO!

I’m in Reno – 13 hour and 40 minutes, 870 miles, two and a half tanks of diesel, but I’m here!  Just ate dinner ( notice I didn’t say anything about stopping to eat?)

#firstworldproblems – The peel-n-eat shrimp at the buffet hasn’t been deveined.  (Yes, I ate before posting.)

Two Weeks

…until Gun Blogger Rendezvous v8.0!

If you haven’t made your plans yet, you’re running out of time!  Once again, here’s the schedule of events from Mr. Completely:

Wednesday, September 4th

6:15 PM. For those arriving on Wednesday, KeeWee and I and some of the other early arrivers are planning on having dinner at the El Dorado Buffet Restaurant. The El Dorado is part of the same giant casino complex as the Silver Legacy and the Circus Circus. The El Dorado Buffet is at one end of the complex. The Silver Legacy is in the middle, and the Circus Circus is on the opposite end.

Thursday, September 5th

8:30 AM. Leave the Silver Legacy Hospitality Room for one of the restaurants for breakfast.
1:15 PM. Leave the Hospitality Room to car pool to Cabela’s.
2:00 PM – 4:00 PM. Guided tour Cabela’s and browsing/shopping. Buy ammo? Pick up munchies and soft drinks on way back to hotel.
6:00 PM. Leave the Hospitality Room to go to dinner. Location to be determined later.
Thursday Evening until midnight: Refreshments and conversation at the Silver Legacy Hospitality room. Bring your own refreshments and munchies.

Friday, September 6th

8:00 AM. NRA Sponsored breakfast in our Hospitality room. NRA representative will be speaking to us over breakfast.
9:00 AM. Leave the Silver Legacy Hospitality room to car pool up and head out to the Washoe County Shooting Facility, the Pyramid range for rifle and pistol target shooting out to 900 yards.
9:45 AM – 2:00 PM. At the range.
4:00 PM – 5:45 PM. Show-N-Tell at the Silver Legacy Hospitality room. Manufacturers and show new stuff, and attendees show neat things too!
6:00 PM Leave the Silver Legacy Hospitality room to go to Dos Gecko’s Mexican Restaurant for dinner sponsored by Gunlawsbystate.com and Brian Ciyou.
7:15 PM (Approx) Ray Carter from the Second Amendment Foundation and Brian Ciyou from Gunlawsbystate.com, will talk to us, and other industry, shooting sports, and legal aspect folks will follow.
7:45 PM Double Elimination Pistol competition in Hospitality Room using the Optical Computer Aided Training Simulator from Outwest systems, using real guns shooting lasers instead of bullets. An OCAT System will be awarded to one of the competitors by random drawing!
Friday Evening until midnight: Refreshments and conversation at the Silver Legacy Hospitality room. Bring your own refreshments and munchies.

Saturday, September 7th

8:00 AM Gunauctions.com sponsored Breakfast in the Silver Legacy Hospitality room.
9:00 AM Leave the Silver Legacy Hospitality room to car pool up and head out to the Washoe County Shooting Facility, Western Nevada Pistol League Action Pistol bays at the Pyramid range for an introduction to Steel Challenge Action Pistol shooting, a demonstration of the live fire version of the OCAT system, and more.
9:45 AM – 2:00 PM At the range.
5:00 PM – 6 PM Short presentation by the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
6:00 PM NSSF all you can eat pizza feed at the Silver Legacy Hospitality room. After dinner will be the fund raiser raffle for Project Valour-IT and the drawings for the door prizes.
Saturday Evening until Midnight: Refreshments and conversation at the Silver Legacy Hospitality room. Bring your own refreshments and munchies.

Sunday, September 8th

8:00 AM Leave the Silver Legacy Hospitality room for one of the restaurants for breakfast
9:00 AM Leave the Silver Legacy Hospitality room to car pool up and head out to the Washoe County Shooting Facility, Western Nevada Pistol League Action Pistol bays at the Pyramid range for some fun with the Black Powder bowling Ball Mortar from Gunauctions.com, and some other surprises you won’t want to miss!
9:45 AM – 1:00PM At the range.

I’ve been every year and enjoyed myself immensely, mostly by getting to hang around with people who like what I like and want to talk about it. All the shooting is great, but the BS sessions in the Hospitality Room are the reason I go.

Hope to see you there!

So Much To Do, So Little Time…

Still working 10-12 hour days.  Lots going on out in the real world, and no time to analyze and write about any of it. 

Nobody shows for a “Climate Change Rally” in  Washington.  The snark and schadenfreude just ache to be written.

Obamacare’s implementation of a 30-hour “full time” workweek has spawned an “unintended consequence” – hour cuts to avoid having to provide health care.  “Unintended” my ass.  Everyone who saw that provision KNEW what the result would be.  But the White House says there’s no there, there.  In other Obamacare news, first there was the delay of planned Medicare cuts, then delay of the “employer mandate” for companies with 50 or more employees, and now the cap on out-of-pocket expenses has been delayed by proclamation.  And they’re still telling us that our premiums will go down.

A rodeo clown gets “lifetime ban” for un-PC political speech, and calls for “federal involvement” are raised. 

Jesse Jackson, Jr. and his wife get jail sentences, and CBS doesn’t find his party affiliation newsworthy.  (Hey, the New York Times put it in the first SENTENCE of their story.)

The Federal Government is still running at a loss, but the National Debt has remained at $16,699,396,000,000 since last month.  Truly, if a private business was run like the .gov, it would be shut down in thirty seconds and every officer would be sitting in prison alongside Rep. Jackson, Jr.  And the regular media has nothing to say about this accounting sleight-of-hand, I guess because “the right people” are in charge.

In other money news, apparently while the Fed can create money electronically with ease, the Mint can’t actually PRINT money worth a damn.

Egypt is coming apart at the seams.  Syria isn’t doing any better.  Or Iraq.  That “smart diplomacy” sure is working wonders, no?

Still no motion from the media on IRS-Gate, Bengazi-Gate, or any of the other myriad Obama scandals.  Of course not!  He’s not George W. Bush!

Yeesh.  Maybe I should be happy that I’ve got three more weeks of  busting my ass at work, and at least another month when I get back from Reno.

Please enjoy yourself in the comments and the archives, and a BIG thank you to reader John Hardin who has been making MASSIVE efforts to make available the old JS-Kit/Echo comment threads for a lot of the older posts, like this one.  Thank you, John.  It’s much appreciated, and if I’m ever in your neck of the woods, I owe you a beer or twelve.