Tom Russell would be too modest to say so but he might just be the best and most lasting singer- songwriter of my generation; while some annoyingly typecast him as a western or cowboy or border balladeer he is in all ways an American bard, a living link between cowboys and the beats and all …
Tag: Guns
One More Autumn Nostalgia Photo
From Tim Gallagher in Ithaca: Native leaves, semi- exotic pheasant, exotic (French Manufrance Robust) gun…
For Rifle Loonies…
John Barsness invented the term “Rifle Loony” long before his new book, Obsessions of a Rifle Loony. It is not necessarily a negative term; the readers of this blog who like guns are extremely likely to fall into the category. This is a book for not- so- rich devotees of good, useful tools who want …
Gun Book Reviews
I have received three good gun books lately, and I think I can almost see a narrative thread between them. They are not, as so many magazine articles seem to be today, advertisements in the form of product reviews. The first, Hemingway’s Guns, by Silvio Calabi, Steve Helsey, and Roger Songer, is a scholarly but …
The Elegant “.275”
Locavore Hunter, in a post on teaching new hunters to build their own rifles, has a nice quote on my favorite cartridge, perhaps more commonly called the 7 X 57: “The 7mm Mauser has a fascinating history that I won’t get into just now, but suffice to say that the sort of person who favors …
Military Rifles and the LATE Great Game
To continue the series on guns I have & like, humble & noble… I don’t have a military Mauser because I already have a first rate example built as sporting one. I don’t have a Springfield because with a gun of similar action and caliber (Mauser) it seems a bit redundant. I don’t have a …
Three shotguns (and a look at a fourth)
…which will do almost everything. First, a magnum on the French Darne sliding-breech action. A little expensive to shoot, and a bit “kicky”, but able to take everything up to the largest birds. Second, a Stephen Grant Best London pigeon gun, with a sidelever action and rebounding hammers in the last stage of hammer evolution. …
Johnny UK
Meet (“officially”) Johnny UK and his wonder dog Petra. John Hill is one of our most frequent commenters, an old friend (we met through Darne shotguns), an East Anglian, an honorary Magdalenian and frequent patron of the Golden Spur bar here. He plays blues saxophone and loves good shotguns, wine and French food. Here he …
Two “Moderate” Rifles
This post is partially a continuation off the “Two Revolvers” post— which brought the kind of response I hope this will– and partly in response to this wonderful post by Joshua Stark on the .30-30. (Josh actually has THREE blogs you should read– the others are here and here). I’ll let Josh speak for the …
Revolvers 2
I had some interesting responses to my post on a two- revolver “set” of mine last month but it took me some time to get back blogging– obviously. Jonathan Hanson, editor of Overland journal and possibly the last Edwardian, proposed a perfect pair of antique English Webleys. The big one is “a MKV (“star” or …