11/15/11

So, Sunday morning I met Larry at the credit onion and we went to Whataburger for breakfast. We fingered we’d eat before the gun show and then have a late lunch rather than break in the middle as we usually do. We got to the parking garage and noticed a lack of cars. Not like, no cars, but very few. I stopped at the table where the cops tie off any guns people bring in while Larry peed. Oh, I decided to try and sell the 7mm Mauser. It is so inaccurate that Juan would have a tough time hitting the side of a barn… from the INSIDE! It is a pretty gun though. The first aisle there was some interest in looking at the thing but no one offered any money. Most said I was low-balling myself with the $200.00 price, but no one offered any cash. One guy did say that we could talk after I'd walked the whole show since he wasn’t ready to offer my price. Eventually, on the second or third row, someone did offer me my price and bought the thing. So now I have $200.00 burning a hole in my pocket. Fortunately nothing in that range caught my eye. I did see several “Mare’s Leg” pistols which interested me. Well, they didn’t at first, but when there were no Dracos to be seen I began to think about them. See, a “Mare’s Leg” is a lever action rifle cut down to become a pistol… at least originally. One was made famous by Steve McQueen in the TV series “Wanted, Dead or Alive.” Nowadays such a gun would require a special tax stamp from the BATFE as an “Any Other Weapon.” So how does Juan get around that? Well, he would manufacture it from the start as a pistol. Taurus (Rossi), Henry, and a few other manufacturers are doing just that. By the way, that is also how the Romanians are “getting away with” building and selling the Draco AK-47 pistol. The receivers have never been assembled as rifles but as pistols so… nanny nanny boo boo, stick your head in doo doo! Anyhoo, there were at least a dozen of them spread about the show. Normally we may see one. I briefly considered a Mosin Nagant at $99.00 but thought better of it. When we’d walked the whole show, we left to go have lunch. We went to Benito’s and I overdosed on cheese. We discussed what we saw, and didn’t see, at the show and wondered if we should go back again. I said, “Let’s see if they will let us back in the garage. If not, we weren’t meant to go back.” Larry wasn’t convinced. I hemmed and hawed as we drove back to the credit onion and finally said, “Ok, I want to go look at those ‘Mare’s Legs’ again.” So we did. They let us in the garage and we wound up walking the whole show again. There still wasn’t anything we “needed.” I talked myself out of buying the “Mare’s Leg” this show, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to wind up with one in the near future, moist likely at the next show, if there aren’t any Dracos. See, I think I want a Draco more than the “Mare’s Leg” so if it comes down to one or the other the Draco will win. When we were absolutely sure there weren’t any guns we needed, I bought a couple 12 gauge and 7.62x39 Snap-Caps and we left for good. Larry dropped me at my car and I went home. These 12 gauge Snap-Caps work ever so much better than the plastic things I had bought before. They cycle perfectly in all of my shotties. The 7.62x39 caps cycle perfectly in the 7.62x39 rifle as well. So well in fact that I've already lost one of them when it ejected across the room into the quagmire that is my closet. Yesterday, as I mentioned, was my birthday. Mom took me, my sister, and brother-in-law to dinner at The Silver Fox. Oh man, is that place good. I had a steak and lobster. Mmm, mmm. I tried to see the bill as mom was paying it but couldn’t quite make it out. I think it might have approached $300.00 for the four of us. Wow, thanks mom. And that gets y'all caught up. I guess we’ll talk about the plans for Saturday at the shop tomorrow… if I feel like it.