Jonnin

  Oh.  If you are out of the city, really out of it, its completely different for all of that except the state income tax.  But the suburbs are still expensive, as everyone in the state had the same idea (move outside, work inside) and those areas are hot demand, etc.   Some aggravating distance from the city (too far to drive to work) it becomes pretty much like TN in most respects.  The smokeys/NC boarder is very pretty, but theres no interstate over there.... or at least the part I am thinking of (?).   Can be awkward to go *anywhere*.

my advice is to figure out the materials cost and time it takes.  Pay yourself for the time in some hourly wage that seems appropriate for it.  Take that total and multiply by say 1.25 or so (your choice) ... feel free to pad it so ppl can counteroffer and you still come out well, but have your min price in mind.  And realize that ppl talk, so whatever price one guy gets it for, the others will know, if they know each other.   Quote them the price and take it as an "order" and quote a time to have it done & delivered.   They can take it or leave it.    I would not build too many in advance.  People have NO respect for the cost of hand-made things, the time taken to build it, and will offer you like 250 for that as if you were walmart and the item were made by a machine from particle board  and assembled by the buyer...   oh, and aside, that is pretty awesome looking finished product!

  I lived there in the mid 90s.  You can't really divide it ... Atlanta is Atlanta and its one giant thing.    The negatives: - there is a LOT of violent crime there.  We had a place at ga-tech to mark each shooting... it was in the 50s most quarters (what we could hear in our dorm rooms only).   - Traffic, period - expensive housing - income taxes -- rather steep, with city and state both.... - traffic     the pros.. ga school system is considered good, so long as you are not in the ghetto anyway grady is possibly the best gunshot hospital in the south, and probably top ten east coast.  That being about all they treat... nonstop..   If you are interested in this specific bit of nursing, it might be interesting.  It has other good hospitals as well, but I don't recall much, I rarely get sick. childcare --- no idea, but I am sure you can get it if you have the funds... its assured that a large city has this in many forms. stuff to do --- tons.  You won't lack for somewhere to go on the weekend if you like to go out. probably higher salary, but the cost of living and taxes, I can't tell you if moving is an actual quality of life upgrade or not, but be wary of the high expenses there. public services, including transportation, subway and busses and such, more -- standard city services, etc.   all in all, what more to say... its a gigantic city with all the good and bad stuff that goes with a gigantic city...

its a nice place but the fort proper took up maybe 2 hours tops, and that would be going extra slow.  The rest of the *immediate* area is not too exciting as I recall.  We were on a grand tour when we did it and hit Disney (sigh... we were kids...)  and busch gardens (awesome, but its hours away in tampa) and some other stuff in that big triangle.   Theres a LOT within a few hours drive in several directions, but if you are sitting in saint A, youll have to dig to fill more than a couple of days.  I would grab a web-map, look for attractions that interest you, in some radius of some main attraction, and depending on how much driving you want to do once already that far down, and go from there...

I have no use for under rails.  I really like a top rail for target/range guns so I can red-dot them if I want.   But lights and doo-dads don't fit me.  IMHO they should just drill it for a rail to be put on after, rather than build the ugly things onto the frame.  Make it easy to add if wanted, and not there if not wanted.

seal it outside and in and then dry it out?

  A kid can put a lot more than 6 pounds behind it, but in fact, many people do carry usable guns that go bang when the trigger is pulled.   Wife and I both do; neither of us can operate the heavy trigger stuff.   I would not bet my life on a kid holding a glock, for one example of a lightish trigger, or my sig 938, or my wife's tweaked gp-100, or most anything else we kept (we sold most of the stuff we can't use long ago).    For a plumber that can lift 75 pounds with his index finger, my sig 938 is a "hair trigger".   For a guy with bad repetitive stress injury, its about as much as I can stand to practice with.   And either way, if a 2 year old gets his hands on the gun, regardless of the trigger weight, the problem is not the trigger.  The problem is the unsupervised gun and child combo.... which has constantly proved to be a deadly mix over many decades.

  40 is aggravating.   Its a round with very, very little room to experiment and play ... just a few bullet weights, and just a few velocities for them.   My advice would be to figure out 3 or 4 powders for your .40 load, then cross reference back to see which of those have data for the 38 and 357.   You should be able to find a powder that will "work" in all 3, but it will not be "ideal" for full magnum 357 loads.   To punch paper for fun, its very doable to use one for all 3.    Something like Accurate #5 or #7,  win 231, power pistol might work in all 3?  Again, cross reference is your key.  The online data is out there -- each powder manufacturer has it online free now, and there are sites for recipes that you should not trust (without checking the loads against known data) that might offer some insight as well.   Or if you have a  full manual, use that of course.   An hour or so of cross references should provide at least 5 or so that will work.

Yes.  Bamboo is soft until its several weeks old and quite tall.  Ive mowed it down at hip height without issue, just pushes over and its gone.  If you let it develop "bark" or "become hard" or whatever it does, its another story.  You can't push it over, and you can't begin to mow it.  At that point its 1 at a time with a saw or loppers or something.    Mind you .. hip high is like 1, maybe 2 weeks...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski  --- white, male, and IIRC in his 40s when he was active?

I shoot at stuff the size of a quarter at 10 or so yards.  I don't always hit it, but that is my "target".   And it does help.   Using a reduced man target is along the same lines, but it can fool you into forgetting to adjust for elevation @ distance if you shoot a 1/20 sized target at 5 yards, when you have a target that is instead way off in the distance  but the same size....    don't forget gravity...   IMHO if you can hit a tiny target easily at practice, you will have less problems with a large target in a real situation.  If I ever need to shoot in a situation, I want it to be an easy, casual, can't go wrong shot.   So I make practice harder than anything I expect to encounter... totally approve of this idea.

That is not hard to believe, actually.   We have an aging population ... our health and lifespan is pretty good, tons of people in their 70s and 80s drive, and some older still.  A good % of those can get at least a rearview tag; most have some ailment or other that is sufficient.   Then you have war vets and athletes that got hurt.  Then you have car accident victims and other random acts of injury.  Before you even *get* to the self inflicted things (and again, many obese people have some medical problems that cause it, not all of course, but when you *cannot* exercise, and your drug regimen holds the pounds on, it can be hard to slim down) that is a significant # of people.   There are also a great many legit folks with temporary placards --- surgery or something and you can get a 3 month placard but cannot renew it.    The majority of people are not 100% healthy 25 year olds.  

Just like the man said.   His drills may involve needing to fire strings of 10 shots, and a 5 shot revolver can't DO that.   So you reload an extra time.   Just like you would IRL if you got jumped by 3 or 4 thugs.   The class may help you learn your weapon or think about how it might be deployed in alternate situations to one on one or you vs paper.   IF the instructor is any good, you may get a lot out of it.     No matter how good the instructor is, he can't teach you how to wipe out 10 bad guys with a 5 shot gun.  If his scenarios are designed around 15 shot pistols, its a mismatch and taking it could be wasting your money, or you may learn a little from it.   It depends on the price of the class, the intended audience, and the types of drills, and a dozen other things whether its worth it to you.     He opened himself up for feedback, so ask HIM.   BUT IMHO he already answered you: he said bring an auto.   And by that, he probably meant "bring a 15 shot auto".   Odds are my 6 shot pocket rocket wouldn't fare any better than your wheelie.

  while you know those people personally and can say, you can't always judge how handicapped someone is.  We have one for the wife's ms.  Some days, she can walk almost like a normal person, but *every* day she fights fatigue.  Like dolomite said, every step matters... if she over-does it at the store, she is done for the day for anything else, even when she looks to be walking normally.   A wheelchair is not the only way to be "truly" handicapped.

  I do not think buck shot is good for the targets.  I think smallest couple of birds is most used, and recommended. 12 is going to knock stuff down better, but 20 is fine.   capacity means reloading it more.  It slows you down and time = score...  if you have it modified to use the reloading sticks you can bypass that some. 

Nice!  I have a 45 and it has yet to fail.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with them.  Good, heavy gun with a nice trigger, reliable, and acceptable accuracy all at a bargain price.  

  no choke at all is how I ran.  You don't need it; and slugs are used some in 3-gun so you are limited to whichever ones (sorry, but ive forgotten!!) are safe with a slug.  No choke for sure is safe with slugs, and I only had on-hand a type that was unsafe, so I took mine out and left it like that.  It worked great.      Ammo: cheapest thing that works is what I used, because I am cheap.   Mine is an auto, so that turned out to be some work to choose ammo that actually cycled the gun reliably.   A pump can shoot anything without worry, long as it goes bang.   When it comes to birdshot, ASK YOUR DIRECTOR.  Some shot is more damaging to the targets than others, and he may steer you toward a particular shot size (pretty sure you want the smallest couple of sizes only).   Slugs mostly hit paper, so just the birdshot matters.   Steel shot is "right out".  You don't want to have to pay $50 for a new target after you vaporize it....  (and I am pretty sure the bounced steel would be considered dangerous and an offense of safety rules!).  Sorry for cpt obvious moment but after some of the things I have seen people do, I just say everything explicitly.

  for the 45 acp, 1 inch of barrel means about ... well, read yourself:  http://www.ballisticsbytheinch.com/45auto.html it is insignificant IMHO for the large guns.  The shorter the barrel, though, the MORE one inch matters; its exponential not linear.  The diff in a 1 inch vs 2 is significant.  The difference in 5 vs 6 is small.  10 vs 11 is near zero...   your height and weight matter not.   Your hand size matters, and finger length ... they are large guns with a large grip and super small hands can struggle with them.  Average is fine.  Your strength matters... its a heavy platform to hold up for extended periods of slow-fire aimed shots, and extra challenging one-handed competition style.  The recoil is low for the amount of momentum/physics produced.  Its slower than the jerk of a 9mm, and the heavy gun inertia soaks some of it, so the net result is a mild push over a longer period of time, making it feel fairly gentle.   It still has recoil, mind you, but on a scale of .22 to 500 mag, its in the lower 25%.

  I am curious too.   Like anything else, though, not all doctors are equal.  The machine may do the work but the DR has to know how to set it up.   There are some bad DRs out there (cough, cough, if you happen to live around me, and you notice that someone has to advertise, a lot, .... you might avoid them).

light year here,  a bit of cash from the parents,  bunch of dvds,  firefly boardgame expansion (blue sun), and some other small things for me ... some snacks that I don't normally allow myself, a pretty cool ratcheting screwdriver (not motorized but still nice) from the in-laws.   Good times with mom & wife's parents.  Got to meet the new niece, amazing little girl of 6 or so adopted into bro-in-law's family.  Time off from work.  All in all, excellent holiday season.    I have managed about 2 solid weeks of doing next to nothing -- sleeping late, playing on the computer, reading.  I think the most industrious thing I did was run the laundry & take out the trash one day :).  Don't get to act like that much anymore, so it was right on up there with some of the best vacations ever!

You got 14 out of 15: You're a grammar pro!   I thought they were stupidly easy things that a 5th grader or so should know, to be honest.  Sure, we mess them all up in hurry-up internet typed chat, but we should *know* better.    for the record, the topic of this thread also has a mistake.   the one that aggravates me is still the inability to use the word "and" correctly.   Which I see and hear nonstop lately.  I am torn between ignoring it, correcting it, laughing at it, or plugging my ears.

  This depends on how bad your eyes ARE, really.   I could barely read the E on the chart... and that only with one of my eyes.  Afterwards, I was 20-20, and even now, in my 40s, I can do 95% of things without my glasses.   If I lost a contact, or broke one, I could not drive, work, or do much of anything, might read a book with my nose touching the paper nearly, or tv/computer at the same distance, but it was pretty miserable.    I usually had spares but stuff happens... out and about, blink it out of your eye and its 50 bucks down the toilet.  They also get scratched etc, if hard like mine were (and extreme bad vision can only use hard, back then anyway?)  I would estimate I had to buy a set every 6 months, and over the time period... it would easily have paid for my lasik!   I highly recommend lasik if you are either very young (less than 30, preferably in early 20s) or if your vision is really bad (cannot at least drive without your glasses/contacts at all).   If not, skip it.    I paid for mine with one of those screwball medical expense accounts that somehow bounce off your taxes... I don't remember how it works but you get X dollars to spend on medical stuff and that comes out of your income pre-tax, so you pay less taxes.  These are normally a bad risk ... you normally can't spend these accounts dry and lose money ... but knowing what I had planned ... it worked out for me to do it for one year.

Most schools do have a process where (usually on a case-by-case basis) an individual or a group can delay an exam for some time or turn in late assignments for no penalty, etc.   Most also have a process for withdrawal from the class with no grade given -- also takes a process after a few weeks (it can be done for free in the first couple of weeks, needs a review or process after that).    These are options that make sense and I can see it being used if a student really can show they were too upset to function.  Ive been there myself, actually...  was run over by an 18 wheeler and withdrew from all classes, not hurt physically, but too shaken up to concentrate for some time afterwards!!   A free grade?  Nope, should not happen, ever.   Delayed/extended class time and late exam? sure, go for it, I don't care.  Withdrawn no grade?  Sure, I don't care.  C?  No -- pass the class or not, now or later, but nothing for nothing if you expect your degree to be taken seriously.   Free grades and free degrees are a black mark on the school, and devalues their degree... who would hire from a place known to pass people for no work done??   No one.

I dislike the small 5 shot revolvers.   The short frame makes the user have to use excessive force to action the hammer, and that alone makes it about useless for me.  Couple the painful trigger to low capacity, and it is already not looking good.  Then consider that you can get a 9mm, which is as good or better than a j-38, with a better trigger and a higher capacity, easier (for mere mortals) to reload, and a smaller overall frame and profile... there is no redeeming quality to the revolver beyond reliability which is a questionable perk (good autos are equally reliable).    I can't see it.     As far as pocket guns go, yes, I carry one.  A small 9mm is enough for me in any realistic scenario -- assuming a mob with pitchforks is not headed my way, I am good.  I do have a spare mag for it, so its still 15 total rounds.  I do not feel it means I am lazy, or anything at all.  The small gun has enough firepower, is very well concealed, and is comfortable to wear.   I could give all that up to have something uncomfortable with twice the round count.  Every handgun is compromise... Ill take the comfort.

stay away from the para.   I like mine, sure, but I have given it a lot of TLC and it was purchased to be a mid grade target gun, not for carry so if it jams, its not an issue.   And it does jam.  Not often, but too often for a carry piece -- and before I worked it over (repeatedly) it jammed once about every other mag.  There are good paras, but the company has had all kinds of quality control issues -- its a shame, because they are one of only 2 or 3 companies that are willing to branch out of the 2 100+ year old frames to do something "new" with the general 1911 designs.     Cheap is good.  Rock island is hard to beat.  The thing about cheap 1911s... they are not target guns.  This is not a bad thing... target guns are built to be extra tight which causes them to be much, much, much more picky about ammo and jamming etc.   The looser less pricy guns are actually more reliable than a lot (not all, but a lot) of the mid-grade stuff!!   As far as not being pure 1911... do consider some of the offbeat models.  For carry, a gun that is significantly smaller might be of some merits; I carry a sig 938 for example, which is similar to a 1911 but about 1/4 the size in 9mm.   Colt's defender is much smaller than the standard models.  There are others as well... if you are interested in a smaller package.  RIA also offers a very high-cap 9mm 1911.   I like the full size and 45 just fine, but there are options to the combined giant size and low cap of the classic, is all I am sayin.