So ..... What Have I Been Doing?

by JimT, Texas, Thursday, March 31, 2022, 19:39 (904 days ago)

Since no one asked I will take it upon myself to ask and answer! Probably most folks here know me and are aware of my downsittings and uprisings but just in case there is one or two souls who are not up to date .....

In the years since I moved back to the US I have been living with my daughter Jami and her family. We live on a small acreage about 6 or 7 miles from Georgetown, Texas ... right on the San Gabriel River. Lane is an engineer for a gas company and is pretty busy so I try to do the things he does not have much time to devote to doing. I pretty much take care of the property .. mowing .. weed eating .. fixing fences and gates ... maintenance and repair. The first couple years on the property I fixed so many broken or leaking water lines that I should have my Journeyman's License.

I have written and published 4 Books and 4 Booklets on Amazon. One is about my and Twyla's life in Mozambique .. how we made the decision to go .. what it was like living in a Developing Country that is Socialist ... though it seems pretty soon Americans are gonna learn about that themselves. Several of the books are stories from the old Sixgunner.com days with a few new ones added in. There are a couple that hopefully help people who are having some kinds of difficulty they are dealing with. Putting them all together was therapeutic for me and I needed it at the time.

In the last 4 years I have been picking up broken or damaged guns and getting them cleaned up and running again. That has been fun. I gave most of them away.

Kahr .45 - BEFORE

AFTER

Marlin 30-30 BEFORE

DURING

AFTER

I have been casting bullets and shooting and experimenting with various loads. No. I do not do powder coating. Thanks for asking. Someone gave me some .45 ACP's with red bullets and the darn things looked like tubes of lipstick! No thanks. Life is too short to shoot ugly guns or ugly ammunition. Yes, I understand it works well when done right. That is not a recommendation to me. If you like to do powder coating, more power to you. Enjoy it and use it in good health and have fun. I am just too Old School. My favorite powders for handgun reloading are still Bullseye, Unique, 2400 and H110.

I have been reloading .22 Long Rifle rimfire ammo. That has been a trip! I have the stuff to reload .22 Magnums but have not yet done so.

40 gr. flat point

I have been remodeling some shotguns and a few rifles to make them more applicable for my use. I really enjoy that.

I send out a few emails every month with (hopefully) inspirational themes. My desire is to move away from religion .. which I define as what we do to try and keep God happy with us. Ever since I found out that He is not angry or upset I have tried to keep that as my Mission. I don't buy into the apocalyptic judgement is coming doom and gloom stuff. Now if you like that, have at it. I stay away from it. We don't have broadcast TV in the house and we don't watch the so-called "news" and we don't get "news papers" ... so most of the time we are not depressed or angry about things we have no control over.

I belong to a private range about 10 minutes from the house which has been nice. Our shop is large enough that I have an indoor .22 rimfire range set up with a bullet trap. I test-fire larger guns in the shop when I need to, using a good backstop that will keep things from getting away.

My oldest daughter and her husband live in Oklahoma and I go up and spend a month or so with them several times a year. They live 'way out in the hills and have all kinds of game coming through their place. They are 4 miles off the mail road and going into their place have had to stop and let the hogs get out of the road! I put in a shooting range at their place. It's about 100 feet from the front door! Makes it nice to walk out of the house and go shooting.

These days I shoot a lot more .22's ... .38 Specials ... .44 Specials ... .45 ACP's than the bigger boomers. I am getting old enough that I just can't take the heavy recoil anymore. The .41 Magnum is still my favorite hunting gun. Back in 2014 I took a nice cow elk with it. Shot a hog also that year. But I have not done much hunting at all in the last few years. Had a nice time with Mark Hargrove on his place a couple years ago. That was about the last time I did any hunting. Though I did shoot 6 racoons last year that were getting into our chicken feed.

Well ...that's sort of an outline. I have 6 grandkids and 4 great-grandkids. I am working with the two grandsons here ... giving them shooting lessons, firearm safety lessons, and other gun stuff. I built them a Boy's Rifle... from an old Winchester Model 67. I cut the barrel, shortened the stock and the forend and it has made a fun little gun!

Paul pointed me toward this place .. I had forgotten about it ... and I decided it was time to break new ground. Or break wind. Whatever comes first.
So hello to all of you.

Deus te abençoê.