Read Armed Canadian's account of his first gun show after moving to the States.  Interesting, and a little amusing to me.  And reading it made me feel good.

Before me were about 30 odd tables. On two-thirds of them were guns of every description. Rifles, handguns, shotguns, military looking rifles. And people milling around, picking them up and handling them like it was the most normal thing in the world. After a moment, Tom and I went in and began walking the aisles.

I just looked around left and right. I was speechless. Then I started asking questions to Tom. How did you buy one? What were the rules? As we got to the tables of handguns and military looking rifles, it became "Who could own one of these?"

The answer stunned me: "Anyone who passed the background check."

"A hunter uses his gun as a horn to gather hunters in a forest near the village of Selishche, north of Minsk."

Now online at Handguns magazine is The 9x18mm Makarov by Leroy Thompson.  A fairly extensive article (5 pages on the website), with plenty of pictures and a survey of many of the firearms that have been chambered for this cartridge.

Hunting With An AR-15, and article by Dick Metcalf, is now online at Guns & Ammo.

Virtually every type of centerfire sporting rifle in existence started off as a military weapon. The classic lever-action deer gun, long the most popular type of hunting rifle in America, began as the Henry Rifle of the Civil War era, designed to bring rapid fire against the enemy. The lever-action was succeeded in universal popularity by the bolt-action--the standard hunting rifle of today--which we owe to Paul Mauser's classic battle-rifle design.

You-know-who might have saved himself a world of grief if he'd been able to read this a couple of months ago.

I got linked by the American Gun Association.

Looks like a pro-2A website out of Florida.  Just about every gunblogger on my blogroll is on their links page.

I got a search hit today for "should I use patches in my black powder pistol."  Unfortunately, I don't have a black powder pistol, but I think I can answer this.

If you're talking about a muzzle-loading pistol, the answer is yes.  You should load it with a lubricated patch just like a rifle.

If you're talking about a cap-and-ball revolver, I believe the answer is no.  I've never heard of anyone using a patch, and I think it might actually interfere with the operation of the revolver.  However, you should cap each chamber to prevent chain fire.  Some use grease like Crisco or some other bore lube to cap them, and I think there are pre-fabbed caps available.

A "chain fire" is when sparks from the cylinder being fired get into neighboring chambers, causing them to also ignite.  This is very bad, and will probably destroy the gun.  It won't do your hand a whole lot of good, either.

Something just for fun...


7.62x54R on the left, 9mm on the right.  What's in the center?

UPDATE:  No correct guess yet, so here are some hints, if anyone wants to keep playing.  This Winchester cartridge is now considered essentially obsolete, and Winchester is the only major manufacturer that still produces it (to my knowledge).  Winchester does not produce a rifle for it anymore, but another manufacturer does produce a handgun for it.

UPDATE 2:  Cutter got it.  Ruger is, I think, the only one to currently produce a rifle for the .218 Bee, and Taurus makes their "Raging Bee" revolver for it.  My daughter found this empty shell rattling around in a junk box, where it's probably been since I fired it 25 years or more ago.

Just a little something I've been fiddling with.  I was trying to get sort of a good sampling of various firearms through American history.  I was going to use a Harper's Ferry musket instead of a Hawken, but the only one I could find with high enough resolution had a backshadow that would have made it seem out of place with all the others.  Also I had actually calculated (using actual math!) how big to resize them all so they are in proportion, but the Hawken got added last and I think I made it too big.  I'm sure I could fix that, though.

I think the mirror image theory is probably correct, because now that I look for it, I notice him using the gun with either hand.  I'm certain I saw a pic somewhere that actually showed an "INRI" inscription on the cross, which could not have been a mirror image since the inscription was right, but I can't find that one now.  I'll look more later.

Still, here's one more picture in which he is not aiming at anything and his finger is not on the trigger.  Neat.

Oh, and the stitch glitch at his elbow isn't mine.  It was like that already.

Someone came here searching for "what does a gun smell like after it has been fired."

A search that makes me feel sad.  Since the searcher was in the UK, he might just never find out.