so waht ya doin today?

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
I just can't understand how the printers got the calendars so wrong. My calendar says middle of November, silly printers it's obviously the middle of January. Damn, I missed the holidays completely. :confused:
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
you didn't miss much.
there was some football, some fat people, a little bickering, and food.
pretty much every family gathering since forever.
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
I decided it was time to get the x axis power feed installed on the mill. That meant I needed to get started buy a metric tap, 8 mm 1.25 thread. Got that, some other stuff, and headed back home.
As long as I was going to be in the garage I decided it was time to melt down the bucket of unforced bullets I removed from my loading room because they are stuff I no longer shoot, this was a full to the top 5 gallon bucket by the lathe and in my way.
Bullets are all melted, power feed is installed and tested.

Now I have some ribs smoking.
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
Took a short nap in front of TV. Seems the iPad falling against my chest while watching a YouTube video wakes up?

Just finished a short mill project. Took me some time to figure out how to hold the part. Got to learn to use the 1/2 function on the DRO to find the center of a part.
 

Rally

NC Minnesota
Trapping three spots for a township. It's 97.8 miles round trip. Considerably warmer there than here or on my other contract which is 107 miles north round trip. Spot #1 for township is a small pond on the edge of town and junction of a set of RR tracks. Easy in and out with a small dam at the outlet ditch. Only problem is the amount of empty shotgun hulls laying along the RR grade. Caught one beaver there and it had shot in it when I skinned it. Pond only had two beaver to start with from the looks of the house and recent chewed trees. Did they shoot the other beaver or not, so I'm waiting for further activity and did my third check today with just one beaver caught and no repairs to the dam, which I partially tore out. Ice is iffy at best down there also.
Spot #2 is a drainage ditch used to drain a rice field and intersection of Minimum maintenance road. A broke down John Deere hoe there that has fresh truck and human tracks around it every time I go there. Obviously somebody is working on it but getting the wrong parts or can't fix it. It was being used to dig out the ditch and keep the culvert open until it broke down. Beaver has a small house on the bank across the ditch from the hoe where they couldn't reach it with the hoe. The beaver has no feed pile out in front of the house so hadn't been there too long or they dug it out before the hoe broke. Culvert is plugged under the road and the hoe had been trying to push a log through the culvert to open it up also sometime before it broke. Township supervisor told me the beaver rebuilt the dam in the culvert after they broke it out with the hoe and log, but nobody had been shooting at the beaver. Empty .22 shells and shotgun shells on the road!! I have snare poles set, conibear set in run coming out of the house and had three footholds set on the bank before it froze. No activity or evidence of the beaver still being there. Not enough snow to form a chimney on the top of the house to verify heat inside the house. I think there is a single beaver here ,still alive, but more than a little spooked at this time.
Spot #3 is a lake, shaped like an octopus, and surrounded with $3000,00.00 "cabins". One main outlet creek, that the beaver decided to dam, to raise the water level, so they could have easy access to a grove of poplar on county land. The beaver house is in the main lake on a prominent cattail/bog point. It's a big house, about 25' across the bottom and in fairly shallow water. In short, pretty easy trapping when I can get to it. Problem is, there isn't enough ice to get on it and cross the lake from where I have access, and the houses close to it are seasonal occupants. I get paid per beaver caught and mileage. This lake is my pay day when I can get on it. I've got traps set where they were cutting, but they aren't cutting now that there is thin ice. The feed pile out in front of the house is about 25' around roughly, so they aren't in need of any more food. Soooo, I drive down there and hope to catch a beaver and pray for -20 for a couple days. Of course all my buddies are calling and telling me how well they are doing pheasant hunting also!!!
 

Intheshop

Banned
Shopdog training going well. Gives a few whines at the door,open it.... she runs outside and does the business.

Have taken her to some neat places for walks. We went to Appomattox courthouse on Veterans day. She behaved perfectly. About 3 or 4 miles and she's done though.
 

JonB

Halcyon member
Picking up Range brass today, after a Police Qual shoot. First time I was able to do this on dry, snow-free ground.
Half a bucket of 223/556
and half a bucket of 45 auto.
But, this is the first time they used some small primer brass, it was "Blazer", I found four Blazer boxes in the trash, so I guess I'll have to sort
those ~200 cases out of that bucket.

They paint the grass, where they shoot, making finding the brass on our 100 yd range fairly easy. One paint mark at 50 yds, one at 10 yds, one at 7 feet :oops: most of that "7 feet" brass is laying right in front of the berm...so I can pick up some range scrap bullets at the same time :p
 

JWFilips

Well-Known Member
Finished up early at work today and got home early at the start of our first No'easter for the season
Started snowing at 2 pm and at 5:30 pm we had about 6+ inches of snow which is supposed to continue into mid morning tomorrow!
So tomorrow the shovel and roof rake come out!
 

JWFilips

Well-Known Member
JonB,
I actually like to find the small primer 45's because those are the ones I load and don't care if I find them all after a session on the range!
On average we find about 60 % small primer 45's on our range at that rate I don't care if I loose some.
Now my traditional Large primer brass I baby. Not sure If I see a difference in loads at 25 yds
 

Misanthrope

New Member
Getting ready to start a project with a 458 socom with subsonic cast bullets. This is my first attempt at tuning up cast bullets for accuracy of a rifle. Going to try the pc-ing the bullets. I'm thinking I'm going to need to size the bullets after the process since it flattens up the bullets. Trouble is, I have a .459 sizing die and a couple of moulds, Lee 459405-FNHB and a 459500-3R, but I can't find what top punches they need. I don't know if I have either of the appropriate top punches because I can't find any references that tells me what I need. Can anyone direct me to a reference for these animals. Maybe I'm re-inventing the wheel. Have anyone been down this road... A little help, please?
 

KeithB

Resident Half Fast Machinist
I sell top punches with a cup face that is designed to be filled with epoxy and then molded to your bullet nose. See Keith's Korner for details.

It's a subforum in Swap and Sell section.
 
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fiver

Well-Known Member
that covers that.
you can use a cut off bolt for the flat nose bullets too.

spent some time down in room-3,,
probably should have went fishing, it was warm enough I could have taken both pups, but figured I better do something down there.
I cut all 4 walls and two pieces of the FERP it took me a bit to fit the first piece in since that's the wall I run the heater duct to and I had to tear that all out and then put it all back together.
I cut the pieces so tight I had to keep shaving little bits here and there to fit the new piece in.
I was planning on some slop since I was cutting everything by hand and had the trim all ready to go but as usual I over achieved in the wrong direction.
 
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Rally Hess

Well-Known Member
Caught a big female beaver on a private contract, just as the landowner came walking by to his deer stand. Dropped the water 3 foot for over a mile in his ditch. That’s seven out of there, and should be the last.Thought he was going to kiss me. He has not seen about half his land since September. Lol
 

JWFilips

Well-Known Member
Well we had 10 inches of snow by 7 pm yesterday and freezing rain & sleet on top of that over night This morniging it was a great parfait!
Worked all morning shoveing the crap off the patio & side walks and Roof raked the perimiter of the house . Hopefully if he sun shines tomorrow It will melt what is on the roof!
Going out soon to tackle the drive way and cars and open up the plow jam at the botom of my driveway where it meets the road!