Tag: recreational shooting

“Here Lies Lester Moore…

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…four slugs from a .44.  No Les no more.”

(From a headstone at Boot Hill in Tombstone AZ.)

Until this time I have resisted purchasing anything chambered in any of the various .44 calibers.  I have .22’s, .223’s, 6.5mm, 7mm, .30, 8mm, 9mm, .40 and .45, but nothing in .44.

That just changed.  Or, well, it will on 11/22 when I can pick it up.

I dropped by to visit my favorite Merchant O’Death this morning just to see what they had on the shelves (the AR-15 drought is most definitely over, and ammo is beginning to turn up again – even some .22, though it’s limited to 100 rounds per customer).  “So, what’s on your ‘must have’ list these days?” he asked.  I responded “Nothing, really.  I’ve got all the ‘must haves’ and now I’m down to the ‘kinda wants.'”

“So what do you kinda want?”

“Well, I’ll eventually get something chambered in .44.”

We discussed the various Specials and Magnums (of which he had a pretty good selection of the latter in the case), then he said, “I’ve got something interesting!” and headed over to the display case where they keep the special stuff.

This is never a good thing to hear when it comes to my wallet.

What did he have?  This:

That’s a pre-2000 629-5. According to the Smith & Wesson forum it is:

a Lew Horton Model 629 S&W Hunter Competitor, 200 were made, only 90 in the US.

The cylinder is unfluted with a brushed finish, the frame and 6″ Mag-Na-Ported and weighted barrel slab sides are polished, barrel and frame top are bead-blasted, smooth trigger, no lock, floating firing pin. The serial number supports the “200 were made” claim.

 It’s freaking beautiful. I almost hurt myself whipping out the plastic. Can’t pick it up until the 22nd because it’s used and the shop has to hold it while the Tucson Police ensure it’s not stolen property.

I think I stole it.

UPDATE:  Smith & Wesson customer service says it shipped to Lew Horton in 2000, but that’s all they have on it.

UPDATE II:  Lew Horton says they’re sending me a letter about my gun.

Final update:

Lew Horton Distributing got back to me:

Thank you for your interest in Lew Horton Distributing. Your Smith & Wesson Performance Center Model 629 (S&W #170049), serial number MHR0XXX, is indeed a Lew Horton Special Edition. This model was unique in the market place at that time. It was fitted with a six inch slab sided barrel that had an integral variable weight system, and featured barrel cut outs. The barrel had an integral Weaver style scope mount, and was Mag-na-Ported. The cylinder was unfluted and the cylinder edges were beveled. It was fitted with the then new style Performance Center thumb latch. The action was hand tuned by the craftsmen in the Performance Center. This gun is one of several different variations of the PC 629 Hunter that we did over the years.

This gun is one of 457 units produced in that configuration. This run Model 629 was manufactured by Smith & Wesson and delivered to Lew Horton Distributing from 1999 to 2001.

This Lew Horton Special Edition is listed in the Bluebook of Gun Values under the “Lew Horton Distributing” section.

Best of luck!

So not one of 200, but one of 457 ain’t bad!

Home Again

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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?

I Love My People…

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Erin Palette writes a powerful post.  Short excerpt:

God bless the Internet. Online, people judge you by the quality of your output, and not by appearance. They get to know your soul before they let the prejudices of the eyes and the flesh influence their judgement. It was on the internet that I finally found not just acceptance, but solace: people liked me for me, and they weren’t looking at me or judging me. I was safe. I had found my armor, my mask, my perfect little seashell, and I polished its interior until, shining like a mirror, I could fool myself into thinking my social prison was boundless and infinite.

A mirrored cage is still a cage.

Thus I toiled, happy in my self-induced solitude, until I stumbled upon the world of the gunblogs. All it took was for me to say “Hey, I like shooting too!” and suddenly I was one of you. It didn’t matter what I looked like or who I wanted to have sex with; I was part of the Tribe of the Gun. That I could write well only made me popular, but it didn’t make me any more likable.

And that’s when I noticed the walls of my cage were keeping me from meeting people who wanted to meet me, and that made me ache in ways I thought were no longer possible. I had rediscovered loneliness.

Slowly… very, very slowly… I started to come out of my shell. I decided to take a chance on people who seemed like good sorts, expecting that every time I made myself vulnerable that I would be hurt beyond my capacity to recover.

This never happened.

RTWT.

As Breda once said on an episode of Vicious Circle:

I’m one of those people – I like people, I’m personable, but I don’t really have “friends” friends, because I just don’t connect to people really that well. But then blogs happened, and I found a whole group of people that I fit in with because I’m weird and they’re weird in kinda the same way, and yea for our mutual weirdness. So, thank you for being weird with me.

Can I get an “AMEN!”?

Two Weeks

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…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!