Friday Musings

Two posts from BRM got me thinking today...

First, some thoughts he has on the current ammo drought:

I've taken my own advice (from the article linked above), and cut down on the number of firearms I'm keeping, and rationalized the number of calibers/cartridges in my collection. On a limited budget, I don't really have a choice. On the other hand, the money raised by doing that has enabled me to build up my stocks in calibers/cartridges I really need, and I now find myself with sufficient for the next few years at least. By shopping around, and swapping ammo when possible rather than buying it, I've been able to achieve that without breaking the bank.

Wise words. I can't tell you the last time I bought ammo; I stacked what I could when I could in '10-'11 and can't say I've bought more than a few boxes here and there since. Other things in life have taken priority, like the house, paying down our debt, etc.

I occasionally look at the contents of the safe and debate what I could pare down, and there are definitely some that could be removed (anyone want a Hipoint carbine?) but I've pared down a lot of the excess-caliber stuff already. .22, .223, .300, .270 in the rifles, 12 and 20ga, and .38, 9mm, .40, .45 in the pistols. (OK, and one .44Spl wheelie, but that comes out during hunting season only.) The .17HMR went down the road, as did the AKlone and several .30-30s over the years. None of my pistols are anything remarkable, which means shipping them makes most deals less-than-a-deal. Other stuff has sentimental attachment - f'rex, my first shotgun is a plain-jane 870 SuperMag, but it's on the never-sell list.

So, yes, I could thin the safe if I wanted to - but it's been pared a fair bit already. I've toyed with paring the ammo stash, but there are limits to how low I'm willing to go - and to what end? Another few ounces of silver? A lower loan balance? Those things can come later, the ammo ... I don't know when I can replace that.

And secondly, What happened to sharing in the blogosphere? I'm not even going to excerpt it - just go read it. He makes a great point. I don't have a huge following, because what I write isn't THAT interesting to many. I check the sitemeter now and then, and once in a great moon it'll get Tam- or Uncle-lanched, but not often. I got linked by CommanderZero a couple weeks back, which was a noticeable uptick in traffic (thanks!) ...

but mostly I'm writing because I can, and because I enjoy it. I have a lot of stuff in my head that I just CAN'T share, which is frustrating. Like AD and LawDog and MattG, I have some fun stories from work - but I'm not comfortable with releasing them yet. And truth be told, I'm not half the storyteller any one of those three is.

But meantime - I hope you enjoy my brain droppings, and I'm going to make a sorta-promise to link to one of you hooligans in every post.

Maybe I will be... someday. :-)