Odd feeling...

So tonight was .. strange.

Cleaning the gun room this week, I stumbled on a bag of primed 9mm that I'd sized and primed back in 1999, when I had my single stage. I *remember* the bag, and why I bagged it up. I had a single stage back then, and had sized and primed it but not belled it. I'd gotten ahead of myself, and dumped powder in them, only to find I couldn't seat a bullet!

So I dumped all the powder back out and dumped the brass in a bag "to get to it later", since I had other cases (belled) that I could load.

Well, that was 14 years ago. During various moves we made before settling on a house to own, that bag (containing 134 casings) got tossed in a box, and long forgotten about.

I got set up to load 9mm on my Dillon after dinner, turned out 500 rounds off unprimed brass. Then I backed the sizing die out, disconnected the case feeder, and dropped that primed brass down the tube.

By the time I was all done tonight, finishing up with that short run of old primed brass, I realized that I'd just FINISHED something I started some 14 years ago....

Which, when you think about it, is a really odd feeling.

Here's to the past!

I'm still going through my uncle's stuff. I've found 9mm headstamped in the 40's, 50's, and 60's so far. Plus a bunch of headstamps and markings for companies I've never even heard of.

He passed away in 2000, most of his stuff has remained boxed up all this time, since a lot of it wasn't calibers I shot at the time. With my recent revolver and long gun purchases my collection is starting to drift towards the same stuff he owned, so I'm putting it to good use.

As neat as it is to find an interesting shell or shellcasing, it's even more profound of a feeling to shoot ammo that a departed family member loaded with their own hands back 30 or 40 years ago. Every year I take his old 7mm Mauser out and fire a few of his handloads through it, along with some of my own to see who loads better. Lets me remember and honor him, by competing against him.

This year I'll be adding in salutes from my own 357 and 30/40 Krag rifles, with his ammo vs. mine...

Oh those 230gr Winchesters JHP's, yeah I have a particular fondness for them, and called them the same things too! I haven't bought any in years, but I loaded a ton of those a decade ago or so.

One of the eye poppers last night was a box of 9mm handloads from back in the late 90's labeled "ONE HAS NO POWDER."

I don't remember making those, but it's definitely my handwriting. How in the hell.... maybe I wrote that on there because they were loose rounds and I just wanted to alert myself in to paying attention when I shot them???? Anyway I was really scratching my head over that one.

This last weekend I brought a box of 9mm to the range for practice, labeled, very simply,"MISC". It was all the loose 9mm I'd found in my range bag, on the floor, in boxes, etc over the years. Loose rounds get tossed in a box, when the box is full, I sort them out the best I can.

I looked at my buddy Mike and said "I'm about to shoot 40 some rounds of completely unknown and random 9mm, if something bad happens take me to the hospital, mmmkay?"

They all went BANG just fine. Well, except for the cast lead 147gr subsonics, those kind of went bang, instead of BANG. My target looked like I'd unloaded a tube full of 00 buck. No appreciable grouping, to speak of.

Constrictor said:

The other day i ran across a brand new bag of 500 brass! after years of sweeping up tons of 9mm brass with my 45acp brass i now have a couple 5 gallon buckets of 9mm brass, Now i find it hard to believe at one time i needed 9mm brass so bad i purchased at new prices! i think it was about 1990 when i bought them.

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Man I found some 8mm brass the other day (this cleaning thing has been going on for over a month now, it's a big gun room!). I ran upstairs practically foaming at the mouth to my wife, HONEY LOOK!!! I FOUND 8MM BRASS!!!!! She shook her head a little at me. "Very Good honey, now can you fix the toilet?"

floydster said:

I'm loading bullets I cast in 1957

Smokeyloads

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Ok ... this guy wins.

That was the year my father was born.

One of the recurring thoughts I have going through other people's reloads and gun stuff, is "will my kids be doing this same thing someday?"

So far none of my teenage children have shown any interest in reloading. My 9 year old daughter is becoming interested in guns though. When she was REAL little she used to sit next to me in the basement and pull the press handle. I've been teaching her the basics of firearms, and firearms safety, a little bit at a time for the last couple of weeks, and have a little Bearcat I bought (picking it up tonight) to start teaching her on.

At least I may end up with 1 future gun nut in my troop. I have 5 chances, assuredly ONE Of them will have inherited the "gun nut" gene....

SSN Vet said:

Cool...

Want to come on over and put base board trim in my upstairs bathroom?

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I'll get right on that ... but only AFTER I finish putting the baseboard trim back on in the laundry room we re-floored a year ago, replace the screen the dog broke out of the back screen door last summer, and finish finishing my half-finished basement.

I just paid my neighbor a box of 45's; he got my snowblower up and running (supposed to get dumped on tomorrow).

I long for the day I can retire out west, and shoot from one mountain side to the next with my 50 cal. The real trick is keeping myself from shooting every bit of ammo and components I have before then. Friends wonder why I have thousands of 50 cal, 30 cal and 223 bullets set back.

It's so I have something to shoot when I'm old! I'll be out plunking blue-tip 50's downrange, when they've been extinct for 30 years. Or the lake city 308's pulldowns I have that I paid 4 cents a piece for. Or the bucket of SS109 projectiles I bought back when they were selling for 2.5 cents a round at Knob Creek.

I *could* shoot it all up but it's not going to "spoil", it don't have a shelf life, and I'll need something to keep me occupied when I retire. (Besides fishing.)

Fire Moose;

Find estate sales. Same basic premise. Except it's less personal (and painful).

EDIT: Here's a haul I made from a local estate sale 2 months ago (about 2 weeks after sandy hook and the run started):



Fresh wrapped Norinco 20, 30 & 40 round mags, bake-lite AK74 mags, tons of factory sealed & new H&K 20 round mags, and one lonely FNFAL metric mag.

(My average price was $11 something a mag, if I recall correctly)

Local newspaper, and the occasional sign for estate auctions that I see on the road while driving.

Jaxondog, hopefully you are talking later, much later, instead of sooner.