And he once had a bit part in Viva Max! But I digress.
A couple of months ago when I first went over to his place to shoot my EMF Winchester replica, I told him about the M1917 Colt revolver that my wife had come into possession of. The M1917 shoots the .45 ACP cartridge using moon clips. I had told him that someone had given me a bunch of semi-wadcutter reloads in .45 that probably wouldn't ever work in a semi-auto, but would be great for using in that old revolver.
Today he showed up with this:
Turns out he had once had a custom M1911 competition gun which had been customized to use this specific type of match ammo. It had been stolen, and he had never replaced it. He still had a full box of 50 cartridges of this 30-year-old or so Winchester-Western Super Match.
Nickel plated cases and 185-grain "Full Metal Case" (I guess they mean full metal jacket) semi-wadcutters which they call "clean cutting bullets" on the box.
I'm honestly kind of reluctant to shoot these, just because it's a full box of 50 of such old ammo. But that's what he gave them to me for, and that's what I'm sure I'll do eventually, although I'll save at least one in case I ever get around to collecting cartridges (sounds like a fun hobby). The headstamp on these is "WESTERN 45 AUTO."
I wandered on down to what's left of the the animal pens just to poke around. Here are the scant ruins of the legendary rat killing.
There are two of the trees that had their branches covered with rats that night. I think the one in the center of the picture is now just a dead stump. The large object on the ground to the right of it is a pig feeder--the only evidence remaining that pigs had ever been there. The clear field in the far distance was dense forest when I was a kid.
My dad is going to get into raising deer. He had mentioned to me before that he was thinking about it, and today I found that he has already begun building the pens he will need. It requires licensing, inspection, and capital to purchase the deer. The money is no problem for him and he is already scheduled to receive his stock in February. He wants me to get involved in it with him. That sounds pretty cool to me. Due to a life insurance "inheritance" or whatever you call it that my wife received a couple of years ago when her mother passed away, we can actually afford to buy at least two bred does. It would be an interesting way to make some extra money, especially since my dad is covering all the materials for the pens.
So I asked a lot of questions about it today and it sounds promising.
What do you do with them? I'm sure someone is thinking that.
The deer in south Texas tend to be pretty puny. I think they are probably some of the smallest white-tails in the entire country. Deer can't be legally transported across state lines, but white-tails from other parts of the state are much bigger, and people who have property which they lease for hunting like to buy deer from other areas to bring in new blood.
Another question I'm sure someone is pondering is: do you raise them to eat?
The answer to that is absolutely not. They are worth too much money to eat. We'll have to stick to eating the wild ones.
