April ePostal Match is Underway (And time left to enter March Match)

JimmyB, The Conservative UAW Guy, who's been semi-sorta-retired from blogging for a while, has come out of his secret bunker just to host this month's ePostal match. If he sees his shadow, however, he may disappear back into the secret tunnels deep beneath Detroit, and we may not see or hear from  him for months, or even years. To be sure he doesn't see his shadow, download the target and get out to the range and shoot the match. In fact, shoot it with every gun you have! If we can keep him busy enough sorting out the scores he may not notice his shadow at all.

Also, since I will be out of town or busy for most of this weekend, I am keeping the March match open until Monday night at midnight, so why not shoot both matches this weekend?

Have you checked the expiration date on all of your handgun ammo lately? It could be getting ready to spoil, so you better use it up right away shooting the postal matches before it does...........

Gun Blogger Rendezvous Registration is Now Open

This year's Gun Blogger Rendezvous, scheduled for September 8, 9, 10, & 11th. at the Silver Legacy Hotel & Casino, is going to be even bigger and better than last year. The plans are for most of the events to follow the way it was last year, with some new things, new sponsors, new faces, and other good things thrown in.

I will be soon making an announcement about a person planning on attending who you will definitely want to meet! (No, no word from Sarah Palin, but one never knows....)

I can tell you already that this is not the sort of thing where you will have much chance to catch up on your sleep! Also going on the same weekend as the Gun Blogger Rendezvous will be the Reno Balloon Races. Watching over 200 hot air balloons in the air at the same time, and from your hotel window, is something to see! The park where they launch the balloons is really close to the hotel, so you get quite a view.

To get your registration in, click the link to download the Registration Form, fill it out, and mail it in, along with your check. If you have a few extra bucks to donate to Project Valour-IT along with your Registration, there's a place on the Registration form for that, too.

2011 Gun Blogger Rendezvous Registration Form

Next week I will be posting all of the information on how to book your hotel room at the Silver Legacy, and how to get the group rate. The Hospitality Room that we use throughout the Rendezvous is provided at no charge to us, provided we have enough folks staying in their hotel. They also provide our group with free Internet Access in our hotel rooms, so you can get in some blogging, if you are so inclined, in your spare time!

See you in Reno in September!!

Conversion Table For Engineers

*Conversions Every Engineer Should Know ...*

1.     Ratio of an igloo's  circumference to its diameter =  Eskimo  Pi
2.     2000 pounds of Chinese Soup  = Won  ton
3.     1 millionth of a mouthwash  = 1 microscope
4.      Time between slipping on a  peel and smacking the pavement =  1 bananosecond
5.     Weight an evangelist  carries with God  = 1 billigram
6.     Time it takes to sail 220 yards at 1 nautical mile per hour = Knotfurlong
7.     365.25 days of  drinking low  calorie beer = 1 Lite year
8.     16.5 feet in the  Twilight  Zone = 1 Rod Serling
9.     Half a large intestine =  1  semicolon
10.   1,000,000 aches = 1  megahurtz
11.    Basic  unit of laryngitis -  1 hoarsepower
12.     Shortest distance  between  two jokes = a straight line
13.     453.6 graham crackers =  1  pound cake
14.     1 million microphones = 1  megaphone
15.     1  million bicycles = 1  megacycle
16.     365 days = 1   unicycle
17.     2000 mockingbirds = two  kilomockingbirds
18.     10  cards = 1  decacard
19.     52 cards = 1  deckacard
20.     1  kilogram of falling figs  = 1 Fig Newton
21.     1000 grams of wet socks  =  1 literhosen
22.     1 millionth of a fish = 1   microfiche
23.     1 trillion pins = 1  terrapin
24.     10 rations =  1  decaration
25.     100 rations = 1  C-Ration
26.     2 monograms  = 1  diagram
27.     8 nickels = 2  paradigms
28.     5 miles of intravenous surgical tubing at Yale University Hospital = 1 I.V. League

Thanks to Akafuze for this!

e-Postal Match - HURRY!

This month's e-Postal match is rapidly drawing to a close, with the "Official" end date being tomorrow night at Midnight, or thereabouts. However, I will be in Eastern Washington Friday and Saturday for a steel match, and I'll be putting on a Cowboy Fast Draw Match on Sunday, so I won't even have time to look at the entries until sometime on Monday. So, any entries that just happen to show up between now and Monday morning will be included!

If I won't have time to look at them until Monday anyway, Why not?

The e-Postal match for April will be announced shortly.

Latest Nooze......

It seems like I start a lot of posts lamenting about how fast the time has gone by since the last time I got a post up, and today seems to be no exception. It's been a busy week, for sure. The new online shooting supplies store, Magnum Shooters Supply is growing, and the number of James Austin Moon Clip Servers that have sold has been a pleasant surprise. The OKO sight market will build as folks find about about them, but it will take some time to get major market penetration. The prices on our ammunition are pretty good, and it will definitely save some folks some money if they buy ammo from us and I deliver it to one of the matches for them. Freight costs on ammo can be ugly, since it's so heavy.

This last week has also been a week of working on stuff. My Honda Civic hasn't been running quite like it should, and I suspected carburetor problems. I picked up a used carburetor out of the pull-it-yourself  wrecking yard along with a fuel pump for $27.00. Can't beat the price, even if you do have to take it off yourself. The carburetor new from Honda is over $700! I took off the old carb ( a pain, must a thousand vacuum lines!) and took it apart, but it all looked OK, at least nothing obvious. I went through the wrecking yard carb, and it needed a little cleaning, but otherwise it looked fine. A little bit of water had collected in the float bowl and corroded it a bit, but it didn't take much to clean it out. I installed the new (to me) carb on the Honda and fired it up. Above a certain rpm it ran OK, but it wouldn't idle at all. I took the top of the carb off and one at a time removed all of the jets and blew them out with the air hose, figuring that a little bit of the corrosion might be in one of the jets. After putting it back together, it fired up and ran like a sewing machine! I drove it about a quarter of a mile and them back home. It quit completely when I pulled into the driveway! It did re-start, but it wouldn't idle like the first time. More loose corrosion floating around, I figured, so I took the top of the carburetor off again and re-cleaned all the jets. Again, it fired up and ran really nicely. I warmed it up a bit and set the idle speed. I drove it down the road again, and this time it ran just like it should. COOL! It was now 2am., and I locked up the shop and went to bed. The next morning I fired it up, and it still ran like it should. I've now driven it for a few days and it seems to run fine. Next project is to replace a leaking front main bearing seal. Not fun! It's leaking oil pretty badly, and should be replaced.

Yesterday I replaced the front brake pads on my Plymouth Mini-van. The rotors were fine, but it sure was needing some pads! The van still needs to have the left CV Joint/axle assembly replaced as it's just starting to make a little noise. Not a bad job, but not a fun one, either. After that, it's time to do the front brakes on the Civic. They are still good for another five or ten thousand miles, so that's a lower priority.

This last week was also when I finalized the logos and messages and layout for my new GunUp competition shooting jersey. Our team jerseys should look really nice.

In my SPARE time, I've been trying to shoot every day. So far in the last week I've emptied about 1,500 rounds of rimfire. Some of them actually hit the steel! *More * Practice * Needed *

The on-going saga continues on trying to get my new (to me) Tanfoglio race gun here from Holland. The few places that will handle it charge from $500 to $600 to "The Sky's the limit" to do all of the paperwork and ship it over here. However, all of the paperwork for the import and export permits and licenses are already done! All I need is to have someone at the Amsterdam airport put the package onto an airplane, and then have someone give it to US Customs in Seattle. We've got all of the Customs forms and ATF forms and everything already handled. All we need is for someone to move the package from Amsterdam airport to Seattle airport. If we can find someone to actually ship it for us, I may have to bring it back in my checked suitcase when I return fr m the European Steel Challenge Championships in June.

On either Wednesday or Thursday I'm probably going to make an ammo run to the warehouse to re-stock on some stuff, and also pick up a few more kinds and calibers while I'm there. That's about a four hour trip, total. I hope I've got the Civic oil seal changed by then so It doesn't take quite so much oil to make the trip!

Friday I am hoping to drive over to Yakima and shoot in one of their Steel Challenge matches. It looks like the mountain passes should be OK. I'll take the mini-RV and spend Friday night at the range, then drive home Saturday evening. 

On Sunday I putting on the very first Western Style Fast Draw match at my local club, Holmes Harbor Rod & Gun Club. That should be a lot of fun!

Yup, I've been kinda busy, and it looks like it's just going to get busier!

Puyallup Steel at Paul Bunyan

Well, we finally got through a steel match without getting frozen, rained out, or blown away! Although it was a bit chilly at times with the ground being frozen at the start, it was overall a pretty nice day in terms of weather. It didn't start raining until we started home.

As to getting to and from the match, there's a story in itself. The Washington State run ferry system has two docks on the Whidbey Island side, but only one on the mainland side, so if they ever need to do dock repairs on the mainland side, they have to shut down the dock. However, just a few miles South on the mainland dock in Mukilteo there is another ferry dock in Edmonds. It's close enough to the Mukilteo - Clinton Route that you can easily see the Edmonds dock just down the shoreline a few miles. When the State decides to shut down the dock in Mukilteo, they run the regular ferry from Clinton, on Whidbey Island, to the Edmonds dock instead. It seems, though, that they try to make the longer run on the same amount of fuel. The normal crossing time is fifteen minutes, but to go a few miles farther South, it takes them fifty minutes! For a big part of the trip the boat wasn't running much over a fast idle! Since they were running the boats much slower, they also had to cut way back on the number of trips per day they could run, potentially causing long waits to get onto a boat. And the ferry system wonders why they are so universally hated by those of use that depend on them as part of our state highway system!

Anyhow, It took us a bit longer to get to the match than it usually does. The Paul Bunyan club only has five pistol bays, so there could only be five stages set up. There were almost 100 entries though, and this for a local club match! Steel shooting is definitely catching on. The large number of shooters meant large squads, and a long day. When the match was over, it was late in the afternoon, and we were all starving, so a few of us headed over to the nearby airport restaurant for a late lunch/early dinner. The food and conversation was great, and it was almost 8pm by the time we hit the road towards home. Not wanting to spend a bunch of time waiting for a ferry, and then an additional fifty minutes to make the crossing, we decided to drive North to Burlington, then West towards Anacortes, and finally South across the Deception Pass bridge to ge to Whidbey Island. From Deception pass it was still another hour to travel the entire length of the Island to the South end to get home. It ended up taking us somewhere almost four hours to get home.

Oh, the match? I forgot about that part! KeeWee wanted to squad with her friend Jeanette, a new shooter from the Kitsap club, and I wanted to shoot with my usual squad mates James and Scott, so we ended up on different squads, but our squads were side by side for most of the day, so we were able to watch each other shoot. She shot very well. Me, not so much.......

Click ---> for  KeeWee's story about the match, including some pictures.

Holland - Here I Come!

The confirmation has come through, and I will be representing the GUNUP.COM Pro Staff team at the European Steel Challenge Championships in Winterswijk, Holland June 3rd., 4th., and 5th. The cost of airfare has nearly tripled over the last two years, and without GUNUP's help, there is no way I could afford to make the trip this year. Sadly, KeeWee won't be able to go as it's just to expensive for us. It looks like I will be traveling by myself. Bummer.....

It's certainly not going to be the same without her there, but I'm thankful that I'm getting to the chance attend at all. Maybe once Magnum Shooters Supply starts making some money it will be a different story, but for this year, it's just not in the cards, or wallet, as it were.


It looks like GUNUP will be well represented at the International Revolver Championships in California, held the same weekend. Last I heard, both James Austin and Caleb Giddings, both outstanding revolver masters, will be competing. I've only shot with Caleb once, but I shoot with James at least twice a month, and I can tell you first hand that they are both excellent with a revolver. I wish I could be there just to watch! (And heckle James, of course! Some days that's the most fun of the day!)

e-Postal Match Reminder & Win a Shirt!

Don't forget there's an e-Postal match underway, and it ends the end of the month, so you don't have a whole lot of time to get your targets shot and submitted. The first and last e-Postal matches of the year always have the lowest number of entries, so we need you to get those entries coming in.

As an added incentive, I will be giving away a GUNUP.COM T-Shirt, by random drawing, to one of the entries. No, it will be a NEW shirt - I'm cheap, but not THAT cheap! This will be a totally random drawing from among the entries, so the more times you enter, the better your chance to have a GUNUP T-shirt of your very own.

OKO Sights - On Sale + Free Shipping

As most of you know, over the last few months I've been working like mad putting together a new on-line storefront,  Magnum Shooters Supply. A bit at a time I've been adding products and product lines, including Pro Ears hearing protectors and Ammunition, but our flagship product line is the line of OKO Red Dot Reflex sights from the Czech Republic.

The store front is now fully functional, the credit card processing gateway works, and it's time to start running some introductory sales to really get the ball rolling.


How about dropping the price twenty-five bucks, and free shipping too? I've got everything shown on the website in stock, and unless an item specifically states that it's back-ordered, it's in stock and ready to ship.

Sure, there are lots of red dot sights out there, and a ton of them a whole lot cheaper, but you DO get what you pay for, and the OKO, in my opinion, is right up there with the C-More, and in some ways even better. I've got both C-Mores and OKO's for my race guns, and I prefer the OKO, but they are both very good. Grab one while they are on sale!

Check it out!

Best Rimfire Pistol For Steel Shooting?

I've got an article posted over at GUNUP.COM about what are the five best rimfire pistols for steel competition. If you are considering giving steel shooting with a .22 a try, you might want to go have a look. In fact, a good steel shooter makes a wonderful plinker too, so even if you are thinking about expanding your rimfire pistol inventory (!) you might find some things of interest to consider. Here's the link to the article.

There's a lot of excellent choices out there, so trying to narrow it down to only five was pretty difficult!

Not Exactly As Planned........

The plan was to head over to the Kitsap Rifle & Revolver Club today for a Fun Steel match, then grab lunch with some of the guys from the match, then head home. That's not exactly how it ended up!

I dragged my sleepy self out of bed at five - (Expletive) - thirty, and stumbled my way to the kitchen for coffee. KeeWee, far smarter than I, knowing that the forecast was for rain all day, stayed in bed where it was warm.

I sloshed down some coffee, ate a couple of nuked pancakes from yesterday, and loaded the match guns and gear into the car. I had no problem catching the 6:30 ferry from Whidbey Island to America (what we Whidbey locals refer to as "The Mainland", and shortly thereafter I was back on dry land and headed towards Edmonds, WA. to catch yet another car ferry, this time to re-cross Puget Sound to get to Kingston, WA. It's a thirty minute crossing, and after dozing a bit on the way across, I was back on the road again ("...On the road again" ? Hmm, might make a good song) and thirty or forty minutes later I pulled in to the KRRC range.

All the way it had been raining with great enthusiasm, and when I got out of the car and walked over to sign-up, it was still raining. A number of the regulars were standing around under the roof over the rifle line shooting stations, where we usually do the sign-ins. It turns out that the match had been canceled. Several of the bays were under water! John, the match director, explained that he had checked the condition last night just before dark, and everything was fine. Last night, during the night however, it had rained heavily, flooding the range.

After standing around visiting with the regulars for a while, John, James, and I headed over to the Red Apple Diner for coffee and a late breakfast, or an early lunch, depending on how you figure it. The coffee, food, and conversation were excellent, and after stuffing myself with a large plate of biscuits and gravy, I headed home. Two ferry rides and a couple of hours later, I was home.

After a day like this, there is only one really good action as a follow-up.

I took a nap..........

Gun Blogger Rendezvous Slide Show From Last Year's Rendezvous

It's already time to start making plans to attend this year's Gun Blogger Rendezvous!  Once the weather starts getting a bit better things start moving quickly, and in no time it's September and time to head to Reno and the Silver Legacy Resort and Casino for this year's Rondy.

Over the next few months there will be lots of announcements regarding sponsors, events, and so forth at the Rendezvous. I can tell you that this year's Rendezvous is going to out-do all previous years combined!

True Blue Sam from the blog True Blue Sam - The Travelin' Man" put together a slide show from last year, using pictures taken by Derek of the blog "The Packing Rat"



For more information about this year's Gun Blogger Rendezvous, check out the Gun Blogger Rendezvous website, and start making plans to be in Reno next September. You don't have to be a Gun Blogger to attend, or even a blogger at all, but if you enjoy shooting, shooting sports, guns, 2nd. Amendment and Right to Carry issues, or even if you'd just like to meet and hang out for a couple of days with the Gun Bloggers you read regularly, you are more than welcome to attend.

See YOU in Reno at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous!

Ruger "Union Worker"

Ruger has just announced that they are coming out with a new pistol in honor of Barack Obama. It will be named the “Union Worker”. It doesn’t work and you can’t fire it......

Found this at Kaching (sometimes NSFW)

Airshow Wing Failure - Aircraft's Chute Saves Pilot

From the EAA (Experimental Aviation Assn. website: (Go there to read more on the structural failure.)

August 17, 2010 — An incredible video that’s gone viral on YouTube shows a wing collapsing on a RANS S-9 Chaos during an air show performance in the city of El Trébol, Santa Fe province, Argentina, this past Sunday, August 15. Seconds after the wing breaks away, pilot Dino Moline was able to immediately and successfully deploy the airplane’s Ballistic Recovery Systems (BRS) parachute, and the aircraft floated safely to the ground with Moline emerging uninjured.



Pretty exciting, I'll bet........

Ammo at Magnum Shooter's Supply

On the 2nd. of January I fired up our online shooting supplies store, Magnum Shooters Supply. We started out with the full line of OKO Red Dot sights and mounts, Pro Ears Hearing Protectors, James Austin Moon Clip Servers, and some custom sight mounts that I machine myself.

We have now added another new category, Ammunition. The cost of having ammunition shipped to you is usually way more than you'd think it should be, and if you have to ship it half way across the country, the cost can be staggering. That's just for ammunition. If you want to buy primers or powder, you get to pay a whopping hazmat fee on top of the shipping. To start out we won't be carrying primers, but that could change a ways down the road. What we ARE going to do, though, is carry ammunition. If you live in the Pacific Northwest, and we ship from Western Washington, that can save you some money.

To save you even more, if you buy ammo, sights,  or any other products from us, and you are going to be at one of the matches where I'm going to be, I will be glad to bring it with me, and save you ALL shipping and handling fees completely. That can definitely save you some money. Here's a list of the matches I am planning on shooting. Obviously, if it's a match that I will be flying to, I won't be delivering ammo, but for Washington, Oregon, and Northern Idaho, it's a good possibility. Here's the procedure: 

1. Email me first to be sure I will be attending the match in question. 
2. Make your purchase at Magnum Shooters Supply. Specify "Will Call".
3. Put "Will pick up at XYZ match on xx/xx/xxxx date." in the Instructions.

That's it!

I will be picking up the first shipment of ammo tomorrow (Monday), and there will be three kinds of 22LR ammo, plus some 9mm. and some .45ACP. I will be adding .38SPL, .380, and some other pistol calibers on the next order. From there I will be adding some rifle stuff. I can only afford to add so much at a time, but it will be growing, for sure.

If there is a particular type of ammo, or a specific shooting item you are looking for, drop me an email and I'll see what I can find out as to price and availability. We will not be handling firearms or serial number gun parts. We will leave that to the FFL dealers.

It's going to take a while, but watch us grow!

Patrick Kelley - Trick Shot

I was pleased to see that Patrick Kelley is now sponsored by the good guys at Cheaper Than Dirt. Patrick is located here in Washington State, and is not only an amazing shooter, he's a great guy to shoot with. I've been fortunate enough to shoote with Patrick on several occasions, and we always have a lot of fun!



Nice shot!

2011 e-Postal Match For March "The Mess"

The e-Postal match to start out the 2011 season is going to be interesting, to say the least! None of those boring old concentric circles for us, by golly! I'm sure that some of you will apply yourselves and figure out a strategy for shooting this mess, but I've got no idea exactly how you should approach it. Good luck, be safe, and have fun!

This month we have seven classes, so there's a place for just about everything. It's time to drag out all those handguns that have been resting all Winter and limber 'em up!

TARGET: The same target is used in all classes. Do not try to print out the target from the above image. The target should be downloaded from here:

Click here to Download the PDF file "The Mess"

It is an Adobe Acrobat PDF file.

CLASS ONE: Any rimfire handgun with no more than a 12" barrel, iron sights.

CLASS TWO: Any rimfire handgun with no more than a 12" barrel, optic sights, no magnification.

CLASS THREE: Any centerfire (non-revolver) handgun with no more than a 12" barrel, iron sights.

CLASS FOUR: Any centerfire (non-revolver) handgun with no more than a 12" barrel, optic sights, no magnification.

CLASS FIVE: Any revolver with no more than a 12" barrel, iron sights.

CLASS SIX: Any revolver with no more than a 12" barrel, optic sights, no magnification.

CLASS SEVEN: Any handgun with no more than a 14" barrel, any sights, scopes, laser, whatever. This class is primarily for target pistols.

If you have something interesting to shoot that doesn't quite fit in the above classes, go ahead and enter anyway.

DISTANCE : 25 feet, or Ten yards, which ever is available at your range.

SHOOTING POSITION: Standing, un-supported, off-hand, one or two hands on gun permitted.

SCORING: In each class you are allowed ten shots at the target. Touching a line, or touching two or more areas with one shot counts as hits in all of the areas touched. For example, a hit that touches the center 20 but also touches the surrounding white area gets both the 20 and the -10, so the shot nets you 10 points. If a shot touches the black 10 on the right side, overlaps into the -5 area, and also touches the line between the -5 and the 1, you get 10-5+1 for the shot, or 6. For a shot to score, it must at least touch the outermost ring, or else it's a miss.Ties will be decided based on the highest number of hits solidly in the black 20 point spot and not touching the edges.

Mark your score on each target with a legible pen, along with the class and type of gun used. Don't write your name on the target, only the name you want to appear in the results, as your target may get posted on Mr. Completely.

I suspect that this target will be, like most of the e-Postal matches, a lot harder that it looks. Don't throw away your targets is disgust when you think you did poorly. Send them in! You will probably be surprised to find out that you did a lot better than you thought.

STRATEGY: Beats me.........

MULTIPLE ENTRIES: You can enter more than once, in fact, it is encouraged. Shoot everything you own, and everything you can borrow! Take a buddy to the range, get him entered, then borrow his gun and enter that! The only restriction is that you can only enter once for any given gun, in any individual Class. You can shoot the target as many times as you like, and send in the best one.

Different calibers in the same gun count as one gun. For example, .38SPL and .357MAG are considered as one, as would be .44SPL and .44MAG. Different guns of the same caliber and barrel length can be entered.

PRIZES: Nope, it's just for the fun of it and the bragging rights!

SUBMITTING YOUR ENTRY: Take a digital photo of, (or scan) your targets, and email the picture, along with:

1. Your score.

2. The name you want used when we post the results.

3. Gun description - Brand, model, semi-auto, revolver, black powder, caliber, barrel length, and type of sights

4. Class: Class One, Two, Three, four, five, six, or seven.

5. Anything interesting or unique about your entry that other shooters might enjoy hearing about.

Email it all to b l o g (at) w h i d b e y (dot) c o m

If you can't scan or send target pictures, send everything else to me in an email, and we'll arrange for either fax or snail mail for the targets.

The rules are subject to revision as needed, should the need arise.

All entries must be received by Midnight on Thursday, March 31st, and results will be posted within seven days, or less.

If you have any questions, leave the question in the comments to this post, or send me an email, or both.

Have fun!!