Jonnin

  In what way?  It pretty much agrees with what the law says.  I don't like the wording here because it claims they can inspect and create problems for having/storing gunpowder,  and if you read it literally the act of shooting might be setting off a small amount of explosive which is therefore illegal.   There are probably exceptions for shooting in the laws proper, I am only speaking to the careless wording of this opinion.

One mistake is all it takes to ruin a life sometimes.

  I learned how to open cheap locks with a paperclip in the 4th grade.   I also knew how to open a interior locked door with a thin object like a ruler or credit card around the same time -- we could get into the teacher's locked cabinet with a pair of scissors.   I agree the little kid here has been taught but I learned to open poor quality stuff at an age that could have landed a gun in my hands.  Couple this relatively minor delinquency on my part with a problem kid that knew the same stuff and throw a gun into the box to stir the pot and you have real trouble.    But that just goes back to what we know facing adult criminals etc too.   No safe can keep a determined person out.  Some take more determination than others, but they all will fail under the right circumstances.  

10 cents / round is 5 bucks / box (of 50). 1 box of 50 won't even feed 2 magazines.   A typical AR shooter can burn out 2 -3 or more boxes / range trip. So now its 10, 15 bucks every time you go. If that is once a month, you are looking at 100- 200 dollars a year.    More if you consider taxes, shipping, or other costs that many people gloss over when comparing the prices.    There isn't much that I can't make for 1/2 the cost of buying it, even with primers and powder being a little scarce.    And as already said, you are comparing the bottom shelf cheap stuff to handcrafted reloads ... you can make it better, and you can make it cheaper.  

clean before size.  Else grit can get in your die and scratch it up which leads to stuckedness.   Also beware any grit from cleaning if you use such things.    If the brass is clean anyway (fired, caught, and all that's on it is shooting soot)  you can do it your way. 

40 is established.   Its used by LEOs, some government (who was it that bought a few million a year or 2  back, the IRS or someone weird like that?),  and tons of individuals.     They still make 38 S&W, and no one has made a gun chambered in that in 75 years or more.     Its not going away.   It may drop popularity or fade over the next 50 years but so long as you can buy brand new glocks and sigs and other common brands chambered for it, the ammo will be out there.   And as long as those sell, they will keep making them.    Its still a hammer looking for a nail.   But its a popular model hammer.

The more grains it takes for a load, the more forgiving it is to tiny errors from your scale etc.   231 / #5 are good, you get around 5, 5.5 or so grains on a light bullet and it will shoot flat and true out to the full 50 yards.   WST has a good reputation as well but I have not tried it.   Remember to weigh your bullets too,  keep them all the same to within your margin of error on your scale.  

That works too.  ^^   What is the penalty for having a short neck, anyway?   Ive thought about just using 308s  in the 7.65  but that leaves me about 2.5 mm short which seems like too much.  I probably would have tried it at 0.03 ... that isn't much...   

Its your job as teacher to teach, so do it.    Tell her what you think and offer to let her shoot a variety of guns to get a feel for different styles and then offer to take her shopping for something suitable.   25 just has few redeeming qualities.  It costs a lot for practice ammo,  the guns that shoot it put the recoil into a tiny strip and bite your hands,  and its a bit weak.  It comes in a tiny package, and that's about all you can say in its favor.

I don't know about those grips either.   But the thing is ~120 years old ... who knows what could have happened in that time, its not uncommon to replace a few parts along the way.   The hammer and sights match the auction pic.  The ejector is a little different I don't know anything about this model and variations. The logo wouldn't be in these pics, its other side of the frame ...  should be a trace of it unless they didn't stamp the layman's models or something?  No idea.   It looks to be in great shape & is quite a nice find, congrats!

I don't have one, so I can't comment, I was just using a drill for that.  My brass ends up with a slightly thick neck,  but it works fine (in my situation!) so I did not buy more stuff.   This process is pretty time consuming and annoying really.   Thankfully each case can be used a bunch of times and I don't shoot the gun a lot.     Time you buy a decent neck tool, you could have bought quite a bit of brass, factor in your time (it takes a good 10 min / case with my approach) ...   

looks like the 22a line revisited?  Which was a nice line ... 

the dies are just the standard loading dies.  The tools I use on a different caliber are: 1 plumbers copper tube cutter 1 case trimmer 1 drill set of reloading dies.   So you make the case and cut it a hair long with the tube cutter.   Then you run it through the reloading die and reshape it.   This takes a great deal of force, so your press needs to be solidly mounted and your case well lubed.   Then you ream out the neck to thin it down (its case wall, not neck, on mine) with the drill.   Finally trim the brass down to size.  If you cut it too long, you may have to run it through the die and trim process a second time until you get a feel for where to cut.  You probably will need to deburr it at the end. 

I am not sure the military uses anything appropriate to 300 BO.  The 308s might work but will be pretty heavy.

Its perfectly safe.   Some people treat guns with a kindergarten teacher mentality -- if you run with that pencil your shoes will become untied, causing you to face plant and impale yourself through the eye sorts of unrealistic scenarios.     Let it fall out the mag well or port and catch it with enough distance that your hand does not push it back in.  Its not difficult to do this, nor dangerous.  The bullet won't defy gravity and fly back up into the gun.  I promise.

  I don't like TBolt either but Ive had 0 issues in my MK3 with it.   But my MK3 has several K rounds through it.  I haven't tried any JHP in it as I haven't found any that were less than the solids.   I have yet to find an ammo that won't work in it,  and I take what I can find these days.   Nothing is 100% and the original extractor is sharp edged and easily damaged ...  that replacement looks nice if the original fails.

should be allowed to pick anything in 9mm (sticking with nato ammo thing?)  or one of several in 9.  I dunno about offering multi calibers ... seems expensive.   Ria 1911 9mm highcap?  

how many rounds through it?   Could be a case of stiff spring vs weak ammo if the gun is new.   Once broken in they can handle weak ammo.   The extractor might be damaged.   Its cheaper, and faster, to get them to send you one than to deal with shipping a full gun.  Once the frame has to ship, the price and aggravation go way up.  Can you tell by looking at it?

  Yep.   Im going to stick to my AK or 300 BO suggestion.    I respect a skilled lever gun shooter in a "situation".   It takes a lot of practice,  but don't sell it short either.   I would rather have the higher capacity and faster semi-auto, of course.   My advice in these situations is to sit on it.    I see this a lot -- "I have $500 to spend what can it get".   Now, 500 might get you what you want, and if so, that is awesome.   If you are drooling after something that costs 750 ... sit on it until you have 750.    Or get the gun now and the optic for Christmas.    The point is to remove the budget restriction from the equation.  If you had 2500 bucks in hand today, right now, what would you buy to put in your truck?  Answer that one, and then see if its a workable goal in a workable timeframe.   And don't forget used ... that 750 gun new might fall into your hands for 600, 500 used if you find one.

30-30 is easily good to 200 and with a lighter bullet you can push that a little more, probably get 300 if you were really careful with a stout handload.  I know the 30-30 is considered weak but goodness you can drop a deer at 100 with the right ammo using  357 or 44 in a rifle.    You want to kill it in one hit so a little overkill is not a bad thing but 30-30 is often treated like a .22 LR or something ...   An ak47 is a lot like a 30-30 except you can put more holes in the target (not talking deer ... you wanted a truck gun which implies a bug-out rifle of sorts).  Or a 300 BO AR.

cool, that matches the auction I linked too,  which says it was only made from '96 to 03.    I didn't realize they made that kind of grip that long ago.

  try a 9mm.  It will fit in there if its a 38 S&W.  It wont in a 32.   That short cylinder... its probably one of those 2.

38 s&W?  Or 32 or something?   This is the closest match I found:   http://www.gunauction.com/buy/13708259   the grips smack of the 30's, roughly.    Other near matches (visually) are something called an I frame.

I have a 308 lever and a 30-30.   Ammo, not too picky, some sort of soft point hunting round.   Scope, I have a big one on the 308 (over 20X power at the top end, the low is around 10, can't recall the exact values)  and standard 3-7 on the 30-30.   Watch big scopes .. you don't want to block the hammer so the eye relief can't put it hanging over the hammer if you planned to cock it manually in the field.

I have the M&P and liked it so well I got a 2nd one.   One of them runs a bump-fire stock that is a little hard on the gun (heats it up fast and runs a lot of rounds thru it)  and its taken the abuse without complaint.    I liked those 2 so well I got a M&P 308 to go with them.   They are well made guns at a good price backed by a solid company that will fix it if something breaks (haven't had anything break on the ARs but they were good about a revolver that went bad).    As far as stuff ... I keep it pretty simple.    An optic,  a fore-end grip, a sling are all I need.   My grip has a cheap bipod in it that will do in an emergency.    First recommendation...  even though 223 is cheap, reloading it is cheaper and its a high round count style of shooting.   You might want to look into it.  Its a little intense with having to trim brass but I have been glad to do it.  Then again, I have a hungry gun so its just a thought.   Holding it... fore-end grip and sling grips are worth learning.  There are videos on this all over the web.   Its not difficult, just something you need to see a few times.   Last one ... leave it alone and shoot it for a while.    You can spend another 500 bucks replacing parts and fooling with it,  but the gun is fine out of the box.   If you wanted a 2000 dollar AR, sell this one and go buy a 2000 dollar custom colt.   This isn't really an upgrade gun -- if you get snobbish youll want to replace 50% of it and if you aren't snobbish, leaving it alone is great.