so waht ya doin today?

Ian

Notorious member
I got one, it's pretty excellent for the money. Sight Mark makes them, it's a digital camera engineered for low-light capabilities and has a built in illuminator for really dark mights. Easily good to 100 yards id'ing critters, multiple reticles, daylight capability, zoom, manual focus, 30mm ring requirements, and runs for 3-4 hours on a pair of AA batteries.

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358156 hp

At large, whereabouts unknown.
Jon B--I have looked at a few videos on Youtube regarding the new Pythons, and the presenters all paint rosy pictures of the roll-out. 'Mmmkay, if you say so' was my thought. I don't want to be one of Colt's beta testers right after roll-out. I waited about a year before buying my first L-frame S&W in late 1981. If I decide to snag a Python, I will likely follow that regimen. The examples that companies send to gunwriters likely are NOT mass-production units. If Hickock 45's experience is an example of Colt QC, you will pardon me for not being surprised.

Fiver--One of the propaganda sequences I watched involved Ken Hackathorn at Gunsite with a 4-1/4 inch Snake Sample. The revolver ran well in the video sequences, which was nice. Some things the narrators pointed out were the smoothness and steady D/A pull tension of this new action, vs. the "stacking" of the old Colt V-spring actions. That kinda confirms your info. Also, they pointed out the trigger's form has a shallower bow to it, longer curve radius might be a better description of the condition. Finally, the grip frame remains unchanged from that of the original Pythons, so they (and I) surmise that I-frame Colt aftermarket grips will fit up.

Colt is trying, at least.
Nobody in their right mind would ever consider sending something to Ken Hackathorn that isn't fully vetted at 100% function & performance. He has a huge following, and will tell the world exactly what he thinks.
 

CZ93X62

Official forum enigma
His assessment was very positive. He added in some Old School revolver-training sequences that re-kindled old memories from Nineteen-Ought-Seventy-Seven (just after the last Ice Age) when I was a baby deputy.
 

Tom

Well-Known Member
Tom, I've seen some black ice just like you describe. I hit it and knew enough to try to get to the shoulder. Almost made it but slid into the ditch. Couldn't get enough traction to quite get out. I imagine it's embarrassing enough to have your truck in the ditch. Try a Troop car, in broad day light, while every one else seems to be running studded snows and points and snickers as they whiz by at 8-10mph! After that, I started carrying chains.

Cold day yesterday. Our barn is a cold barn and the goats were not happy campers. Decided to run to town to get some protein blocks for them. Gotta say, I really, really like the Burb. Yeah, it needs some tweaking, but jeeze what a nice truck. Oldest boy was over and I took him and youngest girl who was home from school. Dropped him at the garage to bring home his Moms Wrangler. It was a bad starter BTW. Picked up the last 2 blocks at TSC and got a couple spare keys made for the Burb. Came home and brought 3, well, 2 1/2 trees up to the wood pile. Lost a tire chain and that took an extra 10 minutes of farting around to be able to get traction enough. And that was after spending an extra 45 minutes trying to get the old Ford tractor to start. Like a dummy I forgot in cold weather, (it was 6F), you have to step on the clutch to get her to start. So I ran the battery down and ended up having to take Mothers Jeep down a rutted tractor path to jump it. First time that been in 4wd that I know of! Got that going and drug the wood up. Gordy was home by then and he and Matt told me they'd get more wood to the house. Okay, so I go and try to get a round bale for the horses. That was another 20 minutes on my knees heating up the Massey enough to get the hydraulics working, and that's AFTER it just had a fresh hyd oil change! Gonna have to look at the pickup screen when it's warmer. Got a round bale and headed out into the pasture. Couldn't get out of some ruts and broke through the ice. Stuck solid. By then it's getting dusk. Gord got the Ford and we just barely got it out. At least the stock all had plenty of hay because it was supposed to be below zero F last night. Got in and got the message oldest daughters surgery went well and she was doing fine. That was a relief! slept like a dead man.

We're supposed to get 6-10" today and tomorrow. Not sure when the girls are coming home, but I'm hoping it's early enough to avoid most of the snow.
Yep, Bret, I'm sure it's worse when your patrol car is stuck.
Back in the 80s, I was on slick snow pack on us97 in northern California doing 65 in a 55. Met a CHP officer who turned on his red-n-blinkies and proceeded to go into the ditch. Since he never did come up behind me, I had to assume he was pulling over a wayward muskrat there in the ditch, so I kept going. I didn't get off Scott free, though. 3 days later, he saw me going south bound and pulled me over for a friendly chat about my brakes/lights/tires/permits/log book/underwear choices, etc.
 

CZ93X62

Official forum enigma
Muskrats can be a SCANDALOUS lot. I am sure that was the CHP officer's reason for the attempted turnabout.
 

Intheshop

Banned
Atrocious lighting......

Don't need the long story but here's the Readers Digest version. About 10-15 years ago was having debilitating ear aches. Got that finally fixed,albeit with what felt like an ice pick and a shop vac,steered by a true artist in his field,doctor. The end result was besides massive relief, my eyesight got to near 20/20 for the first time in my life. Lifelong wearer of eye glasses for near sighted.

But having really good eyesight,vise like grip,and super slow heart rate only goes so far bullseye shooting indoors if the lighting is so bad you can't see the ____ing sights.

Oh I found the load. 4g 700X behind a H$G 68 in the new BE Commander.Only took 4 trys,batta-boom. But have been basically shooting instinctively cause of the lights(lack of). About like closing your eyes?

Hope to finish the new recoil spring tester this a.m. before heading to the woods with CB varmint rig. It's pretty slick,have had fun making it. Put a new 14# Wolff spring in the gun and it works perfect but,that's just what the pkg says? The spring that came in the pistol was d.o.n.e. Springs are funny.... what it "sposed" to be and what it "is" don't always match up. Same with the springs in the clip.... yes,clip. It's a sheet metal reference that has...oh well,forget it.

Anyway....

Ordered a used,old(as new,minty,nobody wants it) Simmons spotting scope for beer $$. Angled eyepiece and lower X,with focusing down to feet. Will leave it setup indoors. Although it does come with a nice back packable case? It may see some use in the field as a test monkey(for a nicer unit) but am really excited for its use indoors(50' range).

The round plastic handles I mounted on our 3,4500 lubers have been working extremely well. Been lubing the 200g .45's with some soft'ish 50/50 (BW/Vaseline) and the plastic ball handles are NICE.
 
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Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Tom, I had a few guys I "missed the first time" that I got the next time through. Truckers were among the very nicest people I ever had to deal with on the job. Spent my last 6 years as a DOT cop dealings almost exclusively with trucks, great job. A few knot heads yes, but over all just a great bunch of guys. Knowing I was taking time out of their day to produce a number for the job, I tried to do things quickly and efficiently. Sometimes it didn't go so well for the guy that thought things like brakes were more of a suggestion than law or that considered a log book a nuisance, but usually it was as quick and painless as I could possibly make it.

Well, we got some snow. Doesn't look like anything close to 10". 4-5 maybe. I'm going to try and avoid seeing just how much there really is until I've got some coffee in me...
 

358156 hp

At large, whereabouts unknown.
Trucking has changed even more now. Lots of Eastern European drivers, and Hispanics. Seemingly all driving without the benefit of being able to read & write in English. Most also seem the feel as entitled and any millennial:). It has gotten so bad that the truck shop I work for no longer offers service calls to non-established accounts. Everybodys trying to rip us off anymore. These aren't the truck drivers I grew up around.
 

RBHarter

West Central AR
During my stint with the Gov contract I loaded a driver from Australia . I asked him what made him come to America to drive a truck .
He said a Georgia girl . You know your truck is tagged in Alabama ? "Aye , ats where I live wit da Russian girl from Georgia Russia ." Appearently he liked to shoot and hunt too .
 

Ian

Notorious member
Trucking has changed even more now. Lots of Eastern European drivers, and Hispanics. Seemingly all driving without the benefit of being able to read & write in English. Most also seem the feel as entitled and any millennial:). It has gotten so bad that the truck shop I work for no longer offers service calls to non-established accounts. Everybodys trying to rip us off anymore. These aren't the truck drivers I grew up around.

We quit doing road calls about ten years ago for the same reason. Our established, local customers are our bread and butter so we make exceptions, but only for them.

The eastern euro guys (Baltic areas, mainly) haven't been so bad here in general except they have standardized complete junk as a norm, things like truck frames literally rusted and broken in half, 2 mile per gallon of oil habits, disconnected brake chambers, etc. We have a lot full of abandoned tractors which were red-tagged and then totalled by our estimates. Most out of CA.

The ones that we flat refuse service ("too busy sir, maybe we can get to it in 2-3 months?") are the middle-easterners passing through from the west coast. Those as an entire group have to be seen to be believed. They expect free boarding, taxi service, drop what we're doing and drive 2 hours to get a part for them, stay all night working on their junk, and let them go with an IOU in the form of an invoice emailed to a bogus address. One in particular blew up their engine and brought us a used one from a CA salvage yard on their next truck through....the oily mess was packed in with boxes if frozen chickens in a reefer van and they had unbolted the door hinges to avoid breaking the USDA inspection seal. We did eventually get that one fixed and get paid for it, one of the few.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
I used to do duty at a US POE on the Ontario border. I would sit in the truck booth with the Homeland Security guys (Took me forever to stop calling them "Customs"). I had a brief and very local claim to fame for being able to pick out a Soviet (Russian, Georgian, Ukrainian, whatever) when they pulled up. If I had kept shut I might have been famous. Instead I pointed out if they had steel teeth, chances were pretty good they weren't from Thunder Bay or Saskatoon!

Had a couple serious personal injury/fatal truck accidents with Rooshins. Those guys would just clam up and not talk at all until the Lexus with the lawyer showed up. Supposed to be quite a bit of mob activity in Ontario and Buffalo, or at least that's what we were told back in the day. None of them ever had a log book that could possibly be accurate. The trucks weren't that bad, but the bills of lading were often pretty vague. When you open one on them up it was always kinda tense for a minute or 2.

Our primary candidates for the "Dear God, who would actually put a truck like this on the road?!!!" award were the Chinese restaurant supply guys. They all came out of NYC and used to only be seen at night. The truck cab would have 3, 4 or 5 people in it and there were often people in the box. Oddly, a lot of them were younger females. We'd find one of them and the driver never spoke any English (as required to drive a CMV by Federal law). We'd get USBP on the scene and usually at least half the crew would go for a ride to BP HQ. Wouldn't surprise me if some of those girls were more or less sex slaves. Really a sad thing to see. The company caught on to the fact we were wise to them and got their lawyers on us. They also switched company names a few times. Last one I pulled was on a hot August day and I found bags of shrimp in the spare tire! I don't eat too much Chinese food anymore.
 

358156 hp

At large, whereabouts unknown.
We have a shady truck tire store on the edge of town that allows certain drivers to drop trailers for somebody to pick up in a day or so. I had to go there one day to write a collision estimate on a trailer, and nobody on the lot seemed to speak English, all appeared to be Eastern European, okay, Russians. The damage on the trailer was at least several months old, but I took my pics and measurements like a good little boy, then beat feet out of there. The trailer was a death trap anyway, and showed signs of having been broken into a few times in the past. The locking bars were all pristine, but the hinges were beat half to death and had mismatched & incorrect hardware for the application. This meshes neatly with Ians post above.
 

Tom

Well-Known Member
Bret, you mentioned speaking English as a requirement. I was told during pleasant chit chat with an inspector in Montana several years ago that that is no longer a requirement.
Ian, that level of theft is amazing, skipping out on a repair bill like that. It used to be that a call on the intercom got the fuel pumps turned on, but there are few fuel stops left like that anymore. At first, the concept of drive offs amazed me, since a truck isn't exactly a high speed getaway vehicle, but I guess law enforcement is spread too thin to respond quickly to an eight hundred dollar drive off.
Society sure has decayed in my 60 years.
 
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358156 hp

At large, whereabouts unknown.
My daughter in law works at one of those mini-marts that sells gas. The Police will take the report of a drive-off, but unless you have legible pics of the person driving and the license plate nothing will even be considered. Her store went to pre-pay or pay at the pump only because it was such an issue. The local truck stops are now pre-pay or pay at the pump only too, but they now have some pretty decent surveillance camera systems now too.
 

popper

Well-Known Member
Trip to Germany few years back, Taiwanese guy I was with wanted to go 'fast' on the Autobahn. German guy had a beemer. Wrecks everywhere. Heard it was east germany (and east from there) drivers that kept no logs or had any requirements. Drive till they fell asleep and killed themselves. Town was nearby and sirens all day and nite long. Oh it does have speed limits in areas. IIRC we finally got to 100mph with 5 in the beemer. Not impressed. Around here is was the Mexican truckers with rotten vehicles. Rules got changed and (Bush) let the Mexican reg. trucks in.
 

462

California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
Didn't the Mexican trucks start coming in after Clinton's NAFTA deal?

It was a do-nothing day till I got the urge to strip the .45-70 Pedersoli/Navy Arms Buffalo Rifle rolling block. Polished all the contact areas of the trigger, hammer and their related springs, which took another 2 to 4 ounces off the already 3-pound trigger, spiffed up the brass work, and changed the oil.
Mother's Mag Polish is amazing stuff.
I've never cared for the wee bit of the wood's glossiness, so judicious use of 4-aught steel wool got it to my liking, and a Johnson's Paste Wax rub down added the final touch.
The ol' gal can't wait till the range re-opens . . .
 
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Ian

Notorious member
Tried to make another bullet mould this afternoon, an undersized PC 150-grainer for my Savage 1899 .30-30. This rifle needs a spitzer for the magazine spool and a really short nose. I didn't get the reamer plunged deeply enough so the gas check shank is .030" too short, and I let it eat too long on the final spring pass and came up with a .287" check shank and .314" drive bands. I really need a 4-jaw chuck that's bigger than my 4" one for this.

Will get a bigger chuck this week and do the other cavity deeper and smaller.

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