Darrell

Some can, sure. But the work that causes callouses and sore backs still must be done. Not everyone can make a living conceptualizing or striking a keyboard. I spent most of my career in a Navy shipyard, and during the last quarter of that career the yard had to start sending new employees to school to teach them how to use basic tools like screwdrivers and wrenches. We old timers came in with those kinds of skills learned from childhood. I also noticed a marked difference, generally speaking, in the work ethic of younger new-hires as compared with people nearing the end of their careers.

I think your age and general condition has a lot to do with recovery. I'm 65 and had my knee scoped last Dec. I played racquetball only a week later and had much less post-game pain, but there was still some. A couple months ago I had injections of Duro-Lane (I think it's called) in both knees, and WOW, what a difference! Pain is all but eliminated now, BUT, the orthopedic surgeon made it clear that the injections aren't a fix and will last only five or six months. Eventually my knees will have to be replaced, but if the injections help me put that off, then I'll keep taking them.

My wife and I both had three shots, and we both caught Covid anyway. Both of us experienced what could be described as flu-like symptoms, pretty similar to what I experienced in reaction to the shots, but of much longer duration. I dunno, maybe it would have been far worse without the vaccine.....

I hope I'm a long way from my death bed, but I am glad I worked a lot of extra hours back when. Working a lot of OT let me retire my mortgage early and build a pretty good nest egg. I was able to retire in my mid 50's while I was still young enough to enjoy it. I'm now debt-free and worry-free, well, mostly worry-free. The politicians keep me worrying a bit. On the other hand, and to support your statement, I knew a lot of people who worked a lot of overtime and spent every penny. There were people I knew who HAD to have OT in order to meet the payment on their fancy truck or their big boat. I never understood that mentality, but hey, it was their time, their money, and their choices.

It's criminal that the US is no longer governed according to the Constitution. You are correct that laws are to be made or rescinded by the congress, NOT by the executive branch, and certainly not by unelected bureaucrats working for the executive branch. I blame the members of congress who long ago passed along their constitutional duty to executive branch departments like BATF, CDC, EPA, etc. The people are supposed to be able to fire those in government who don't respond to our will, but no longer can.

It's been my experience that there are a lot of folks attending those shows who have the same interests as I do. Sometimes you'll find something you like, but if something is desirable to a whole lot of people AND reasonably priced, it's gonna sell quickly. I think some of the collectors pieces, priced like collectors pieces, will sit on the tables waiting for the right buyer, but the buyer looking for a bargain better get there early. If you're interested in an SKS send Fujimo a quick PM and see what his price is. He's a easy man to deal with.

You can actually start out with pretty low expenses for the hardware, but finding primers right now is tough.

I'm loading for a 338 Lapua. I really like Retumbo for this cartridge, and a second choice is H-1000. I've also used Magpro, which is pretty good powder, too. I've not seen any data for military pull-down (or surplus) powder for the Lapua, but it may be out there, and expect that WC860 would work okay.

It's $50 a pound on the Hodgdon site, but good luck finding it there. And $330 for eight pounds. I'd be pretty pleased to find an 8 pound jug at about $330 right now! Powder Valley lists it (out of stock) at $41 pound and $287 for 8#. So maybe $56 isn't so terrible if, as Quovodus says, "you have to have it,"

No, sorry. I'm not in desperate straights for powder.... yet.... and it appears that primers are tougher to find. Thanks, though!

I need some Retumbo or H1000, but otherwise I feel pretty good about my powder stores. And like you, I would be more comfortable with a few thousand more primers.

I saw that Powder Valley has some Retumbo listed, but by the time I clicked on the "add it to my cart" button it was gone, darn it. So I did a quick internet search and found it for sale at "normal" prices at a couple of sites. I'm pretty sure both are scams. One wants to be payed using Zelle, then email them a copy of the transfer and they will send the powder. Riggghhhht! The other just looked hinky to me. I guess with 8 pounds of powder running over $250 it's worth setting up a scam, but MAN I hate that! OK, vent completed.

How bout now?

I had to go to Murfreesboro yesterday, about 110 miles each way, so I rode my BMW and took Hwy 70. The area around Center Hill Lake is a hoot, and I had no traffic in front of me.

Toss them! Toss them my way! Just kidding of course. Garufa is spot on, the whole reason we resize our brass is that it has expanded during firing and the bullet won't be tightly gripped by the case neck. And when you have brass fired in a different rifle, or stuff collected at the range, you can be pretty sure it won't chamber properly. You can resize brass many times before it fails, depending upon a number of factors that you'll figure out as you reload. Just be sure to inspect your brass before reloading. Keep an eye open for cracks in the neck and for signs of overpressure. (You can look that up, others have explained it better than I can.)

NOTHING to do with a Ducati valve train is a treat. By the way, the parts are magnetic.

I don't think there was any kind of fit mismatch, as the part that bolts to the camshaft is undamaged. I think they just didn't have enough meat on that part of the pulley. But you're right that there is no oil on that part of the bike. The strange part is that it didn't fail when running, but when I removed the belt. There's not a lot of tension on it, and with no valve springs there isn't a lot of torque exerted against the cams. Just a freaky thing, I guess. The good news is that a replacement pulley is just $30 or so. Getting it properly degreed will be a PITA.

I defer to your greater knowledge. MIM never occurred to me, but Ducati has had problems with broken parts in the past. I pulled the rest of the pulley this morning. The fracture is pretty clean, and right along the diameter of the extended portion. Seems very likely that the part was defective. Here are the pics of the fracture:

I was driving to the gym on Thursday before the season opened and there was a big ol' boy in the yard of one of my neighbors. He made me do a double-take! I'm a fairly recent immigrant to TN and haven't been turkey hunting yet, but I hear them in the woods behind my house from time to time. I'm going to have to give it a go.

Even though they're expensive, Ducati has a reputation for the odd poor casting. I can think of nothing that would cause this failure apart from a part that is defective from the manufacturer. In this case I think the bike would have had a catastrophic failure had it run for 5 minutes longer. I saw no sign of the crack before removing the belt, but once the belt tension was relieved the outside half just fell off. Whew!

I just pulled the timing belts from my "new" (2004) Ducati 999. Imagine my surprise when half of the horizontal exhaust cam pulley came off with the belt! Fortunately, they're easy to find. I knew going in that there would be surprises....

When I bought my property it looked like it had just been woods forever, probably logged at some point. But after speaking to some old-timer neighbors I learned that this whole area was populated and somewhat developed before the Great Depression. One neighbor showed me where a railroad bed ran through my property, and while clearing some woods I found very old barbed wire fencing. Old enough that there were no barbs left. There's a really old barn a couple miles from here on a property owned by a family. I took some pics of the barn, just because, but there's also a wreck of a house that one can tell was once quite a stately place. That property actually has three barns on it and the house. I didn't actually go on the property, but from the road it looks very interesting. I rented a metal detector to try to find one corner of my property, which has supposedly been pinned. I found plenty of beer bottle caps and other metal trash, but no pin.