I was over at action-squad, and the little tag thing that pops up with my link is "beer and guns...but mostly beer", and that is true. It's been a while since I had a nice gun post. Much to my chagrin, it's tougher to find the time to head off to the range then it is to putter around the ol' home stead and make beer. Brother Tyler and I are knee deep in cider season, and it will be at least 3 weeks before we get a beer going.

I did head out to the range Saturday. I wanted to test out some loads for Cousin Tyler's 7mm Remington magnum. Wow, does that thing have some recoil. Brother Tyler and I split the shooting, and both of our soft shoulders were a little sore. Even so, I got the data I needed for my reloading. Looks like 65 grains of IMR 4895 gives me 3000fps with a 140 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip. That is just about perfect. So, the next step is to get some loaded up for Cousin Tyler, and hope he gets a deer.

The other goal was to test out some loads for my Model 19. FAIL! IMR4227 and .38 loads do not mix. Lots of unburnt powder. Drat! I guess I'm going to have to look else where for a hotish .38 load. I do have good luck with Win 231, and I have read reports of people going with weights up to 5 grains with good results. I'm at about 4 grains now. I really need to get the pistol metering rotor for my powder measure. Seems like that would give more accurate results a smaller weights.

In other pistol news, Brother Tyler and I are planing to take pistol class next year. I'll need to save up, and buy at least a case of ammo, but it will be good to have some formalized training. I'll need to keep the bike riding up as best I can to make sure I have the stamina to get through the class, but I don't forsee it being overally demading.

Up coming beer will be a amber of some kind most likely. Brother Tyler got his hands on some fresh hops of an unknown variety. Hopefully we can get that knocked out and move on to some Oatmeal stouts. It will require a partial mash, but we have purchased a mash tun for just such an occasion. That should take us to end of December, and if the weather co-operates Carl and I will be making some lagers. What a brave new world.