This month we officially kick off the 2021 Gunmaker’s Hall Giveaway. Every year Gunmaker’s Hall sells tickets for a drawing to raise money for Gunmaker’s Hall and the NMLRA. The drawing includes the Incentive Gun, this is a handmade flintlock long arm typically crafted by a new up and coming gunmaker.
Well, here it is winter already. Is it cold there? It has been around freezing here, below freezing at night. I’ve been working on the Americans with Disabilities Act rifle project. This is a flintlock muzzle loading rifle, shooting bag, powder horn, hard case and accoutrements that will be given away as one prize, to raise money for building the ADA compliant restrooms at the Walter Cline range in Friendship Indiana.
Our American with Disabilities Act project is working hard towards building a rifle and complete set of accoutrements to raise money for building ADA compliant restrooms at the Walter Cline range. Mike Miller, Dennis Priddy, Larry Horrigan, Dick Miller, John Kleihege, Bart Copenhaver, Bill Hoover and I are building the rifle. The Honorable Company of Horners is making a powder horn, Jeff Luke is making a shooting bag, Ron Lowell is crafting a banded priming horn, Larry Callahan is hand making a ball mold and a tow worm, John Cummings is forging one of his signature knives. Look to Muzzle Blasts and the NMLRA. org website for details on how you can purchase tickets to win this once in a lifetime prize.
When I was a young man, I apprenticed under a master tool and die maker. In the first two years I worked with him I seldom saw him use a milling machine, he did it all with a file. Being young and headstrong I would often complain, but his reply was always the same: before you can use the mill, you must master the file.
Well, it’s hot again. Dang if spring didn’t scoot right by and now it’s summer. It’s been raining so much nobody wants to go out and shoot. Weather seldom stopped our forefathers though. Even great battles of the civil war were fought in the rain until the rain got so hard both sides could no longer fire and that was seldom. The slow light rain we’ve been having today did not even slow our ancestors down. So yeah, time to get out and practice.
When I was a young man, I apprenticed under a master tool and die maker. In the first two years I worked with him I seldom saw him use a milling machine, he did it all with a file. Being young and headstrong I would often complain, but his reply was always the same: before you can use the mill, you must master the file.
As I write this the governor of Indiana has closed down the state due to the COVID-19 virus. Many businesses are closed. Schools are closed. Right now, we are at home, doing our civic duty to prevent the spread of this terrible virus. This is scary stuff. Without my faith in God even I’d be nervous.
