Zebulon said

TXGunNut said

Don’t tell Zebulon but I found another bag of 35 Rem brass.

  

How fortuitous. 

I’d taken the 141 to Quail.Creek Tuesday morning and fired exactly one round of factory 200.grain CoreLokt, after which the bolt release button seized up and the bolt took some strength to open. 

Because Matt and Dallas had done good work for a very reasonable price on my Winchester 62a, yesterday i left the 141 with them to diagnose and asked them to detail strip and clean it. Pedersen’s action is an intricate one – the bolt contains 20 parts. I suspect the problem is just accumulated residue and dried grease in places impossible to reach with ordinary field care. Hopefully it’ll not require any parts, which are getting scarce. 

With your roomy Explorer, Mike, you’ll have room to haul ALL those troublesome, room-crowding bags of brass to Cody for your friend in need. 

Keep looking. You never know….

  

I’m amazed with the sheer volume of components and tools in that loading bench! Also amazed at all the glass in every nook and cranny. It’s taken me parts of four days to pack up that loading room and l’m not done yet. On a brighter note I now have two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a kitchen restored to serviceable condition with almost all the glass and debris cleaned up. Several windows and two doors are still boarded up  but I’m very close to moving back home, will be nice to spend a few nights in my own bed before heading for Cody. Still working with scheduling on contractors but probably won’t get any real repair work done before I leave. Looters and scavengers are still regular visitors but my neighbor’s dogs enjoy scaring the crap out of them. 

Mike

Zebulon said
Yes, at night it’s amazing how a pair of bright eyes five or six inches apart, accompanied by a low growl, can focus the mind while producing a gigantic adrenaline dump.  

Friend of mine worked as a meter reader in the Summer while going to school.  His older colleague gave him sound advice: “Kid, you always gotta look at the SIZE of the dog [excrement].” 

  

Thing about these dogs is there’s three of them and they understand the concept of teamwork. You generally see one or two. I’m glad they like me. The biggest likes to lean on me when I’m petting him, he seems to know I have balance issues and likes to mess with me.

Mike

clarence said

TXGunNut said Looking forward to heading north next week! Contractors won’t be able to start for a few weeks so I’m getting out of here for some much needed mental health days.

Here’s a place to accomplish that, if you’re going north anyway.  I remember it as a magical place, although I wasn’t there when eggs could be cooked on any piece of exposed metal, as would be the case right now.  But you could toast the buffs with Buffalo Trace!

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/wichita-mountains-buffalo-herd

  

Clarence-

Texas Parks & Wildlife et al have established a herd of genetically pure bison in the Caprock Canyon near an area I’ve hunted several times. Seeing them roam free within the park is a wonderful thing.  

Mike

Update-

For those of you I haven’t talked to I had my house foundation re-leveled the day after I returned from Cody (entire house was moved 3″ north!) and I now have all new windows and two new doors, including the sliding back door. I’m still finding pieces of the old one! That thing blew up like a bomb blast hit it, even the vertical blinds were destroyed. Exterior siding and trim have been replaced and painted. Interior walls have been repaired and new interior trim has been installed and painted. Somehow a worthless garden tub went missing during the bathroom remodel. All exterior lighting (other than solar) has been replaced. My meager GC contributions have been clean up, faucet repairs, installing mini blinds (and sliding door blinds) new back door latch and dead bolt-and hiring and riding herd on subs. Loading room finally emptied out except for benches and shelving. I also removed the section of my neighbor’s home from my overturned storage container-but not before his worker caught it on fire again. I cut it up with a reciprocating saw, local VFD would have approved! Hired a local wrecker company to get it right side up and placed alongside the new one. As I write this the roofing crew is taking their lunch break. in the next week or two I’ll have most of the flooring replaced but only part of that job is related to the tornado. I’ll also have some surplus furniture hauled off.

I can’t believe I’m mere weeks away from retrieving my guns and library from an undisclosed location. Odd thing is my TV, surround sound system and computer printer all failed during this rebuild and my old laptop was not compatible with the WiFi I had installed during all this confusion. Lots of new electronics to go with the home repairs. I’ll be putting the putting the new laptop and WiFi to work on a magazine article soon. This one may take a bit, I’m pretty sure it will require a day or two in Cody. Poor old ankle is slowly recovering, finally able to get back to the walks I enjoy. Sad to see so many vacant lots where homes used to be. I’m serving on the Cooke County Long Term (tornado) Recovery Committee and earlier this week we were able to award a grant to help a neighbor with repair costs. Hope to get more families back in their homes soon but most will require new homes. Thanks to Cody Jinks and lots of generous donors we may be able to help them.

This has been an adventure but I’m damn sure looking forward to posting a range report!

Mike