2/2/09

A lesser person might make reference to the Bill Murray movie, “Groundhog Day” today. I'm not going to do that. Sorry about the lateness of Friday’s rant, but I'm still without phone service at home. Perhaps it will be up tonight. We’ll see. So, when I last spoke to y'all, I had not found a rental PT145 to test shoot before committing. I was also thinking about an ankle holster for Lil Millie when we last spoke. Well, I bought an ankle holster at Cheaper Than Dirt and went home to try it out. I think I hate it. No, I'm pretty sure I hate it enough that I'd never carry anything in an ankle holster. Of course I had already “fixed” the label which hung down too far and gave away the fact that I was carrying it, so I can’t even return the thing. Oh well, not the first thing I've bought on a whim and been stuck with. So, I went into Saturday at the shop pretty much convinced that I'd trade with him and have a Big Millie as my main carry gun and Lil Millie as my range gun and backup carrier. We met at the shop and came up with some plans for various Datsuns and then, just as he was about to leave, I broached the subject of the 800 pound gorilla in the corner. “What about the gun trade?” I asked. We decided that I'd sell him the Hebrew Hammer and then go buy Big Millie myself thus saving him the time and effort of going to Academy. This we did. I went to Academy and bought a Taurus PT145 Millennium Pro. They only had the one in the display case so I bought it. Who knows, having all of Hurst, Euless, Bedford, and North Richland Hills’ finger prints on my gun might not be such a bad thing. I went straight to Cutie Patootie’s range to shoost the it. It took me by surprise actually. The recoil was not bad at all but the DA/SA trigger caught me out. I was used to Lil Millie’s long hard trigger pull and the long soft pull, up to the point of release, of Big Millie took some getting used to. Firing Lil Millie afterwards made me almost hate that gun’s trigger. No, I don’t hate either gun’s trigger, but having two totally different styles is unacceptable for me. Lil Millie has to go. Ok, so here’s where I screwed John. Ok, there was another John screwing, but I'm not going into that yet. We had also agreed, at the time if the Hebrew Hammer sale, that I would look for that Hebrew Hammer he’d seen at a gun show and buy it for him. He keeps calling it “chromed” but I imagine it is just polished. [ No, it's chrome... - SM ] Anyhoo, I was supposed to buy that and trade for the metal frame Hebrew Hammer 9mm. Well, while waiting for the sale of Big Millie to go through, I was looking at large frame 9mm pistols. I saw it, an aluminum frame, stainless slide, Taurus PT92! I was in love. I decided to forego it at that time because they didn’t have the price listed, but it ate at me all day. After deciding that Lil Millie had to go, I went to the shop and cleaned all the guns. From there I went to the Academy on Bryant Irvin Road. They had one for $379.00 or so. I decided that I'd be good and stick to our Hebrew Hammer for Hebrew Hammer trade plan and went to dinner with mom. But the siren song of the shiny polished PT92 was too much to resist. I went to the Academy on Cherry Lane and bought one. Oh snap! It is so friggin’ awesome! I'm calling it my Pimp Gun. I love it. So now I have my guns properly sized. I have a small-frame conceal gun in .45 ACP and a large-frame range gun in 9mm. The fact that almost all of my guns are now Tauri doesn’t hurt either. I'm now the Taurus guy, that’s for sure. I still want a 1911 and that pump-action .45 Colt rifle, both of which Taurus make, so there’s two more for the future. Larry Shuttlebus keeps reminding me that Taurus makes a revolver model called a Raging Bull in .500 S&W as well. I'll probably get one of those too, eventually. We’ll see. Well, I've been away to help a few folks, ride around with Larry, and have lunch. I've told a few folks about Lil Millie being for sale and have a few nibbles. Most think the asking price of $250.00 sounds pretty good, even after I tell them that they could reproduce what I'm selling for around $330.00 from Academy and an internet source for the finger extension thingy. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so honest about it, but that’s just how I roll. Someone will buy it. Ok, so another thing that happened over the weekend… no, now that I've dropped to page two I think I'll save this story for tomorrow. Oh, the other John screwing was that Big Millie was about $50.00 cheaper than we both remembered. He would have come out better buying the gun for me instead of the way we worked it. It wasn’t intentional but I do feel a little bad about keeping the thirty rounds of .45 ball ammo from the magazines now. I'm sure I'll make it up somehow. [ Doubtful... - SM ]