When I got to my friend Don's house out in WY last week, I was quickly ushered to my room so I could unpack and freshen up. While I was looking around the room two things immediately caught my eye, well three really. The first was the balcony, off of which I remembered hearing Don tell me he liked to shoot; the next were a rifle and a shotgun leaning on the wall. One of these was a Marlin semi-auto rifle in .22LR. The other was a NEF 12 gauge single shot shotgun. I knew that somewhere along the way I would be shooting both.
Of course I was right that I would shoot them both, but had I given it any thought, I would have figured on shooting the 12 gauge a bit more. One evening, while I was feeling bored to tears, or antsy, or just whatever, I told Don "excuse me, I have to do something" then I walked over too the sliding doors, opened the balcony doors, grabbed the shotgun. aimed in at the dirt below, and let off a blast. I needed that. What I did not need was having forgotten to put on a head set. Ouch, oh well - Don and I have heard our ears ring before - LOL. I did not bother with that toy again, if only because I did not readily see any rounds for it.A few other times, I went to the balcony and fired off a number of .22LR from the Marlin. The rifle was scoped, as you can see, but it had not been sighted in for me. So, when I was shooting at some exploding targets I had picked up at a gun/pawn shop one day, I was missing badly. Well not badly, but certainly not making them go boom. When I finally got one, I came downstairs one afternoon to ask Don if he had heard it. He was on the phone and I think whomever he was speaking with had heard it too - whoops.
I guess by the third day I was there, Don and I went to Cabelas in Nebraska; the original store I think. A nice place but not as impressive as the one in Pennsylvania; still a good place to be for a couple of gun enthusiast buddies, even if we were there for about 4 hours. While I looked here and there at this and that, Don waited patiently for a friend who worked there to get some time for him. The friend had called Don about something’s Cabela's had gotten in stock that Don might like. So Don checked over a few revolvers, and it did not seem like he was interested enough to buy one. Then he checked out a Kimber in .45 Auto. I think Don began to salivate!
I mean you tell me. is that nice or what. I thought it was pretty decent to great looking, and that coming from a Beretta fan. I could tell Don liked it a whole heck of a lot more than I did, even though I was liking it more and more as each minute went by. He wound up buying it for about $850 used. It had nary a mark on it, almost looked brand new. A good buy indeed, which I was soon to learn was about to get better.You see Don had also had his eye on a Colt official Police revolver. As it wound up, Cabela's gives points for what you buy with their store Visa card. Don already had a good number of points built up from past purchases. He earned enough points for $85.00 worth of them by buying the Kimber. He had a certificate for $100 off. He then asked the guy who worked there a magic question: "Are you having a grand opening sale?" (you had to buy at least $500 in merchandise I think on your Cabela's visa card for this to be a magic question); and the next thing you know he was handed a certificate good as $150 in cash on his next purchase. With his points that would be credited by his next billing cycle, with the $100 certificate he already had, with the newly acquired certificate for $150, well he just put that Colt Official Police on lay-a-way. That way, when the next billing cycle on his Cabela’s Visa card rolled into town, he would be getting a free Colt Official Police. Not a bad deal.
I had brought Don some .45 ACP rounds, 100 of them, as a gift. Then after he bought that Kimber, we went across the road, where I bought him a box of 100 more rounds of .45 ACP, these were Remington .45 ACP 230 grain JHP. I got them at Wal-mart and they were about 6 or 7 dollars less expensive than at Cabela's for the exact same thing. When you shop you need to know prices. I had bought some ammo in .35 Remington that I knew was about $5 cheaper by the box at Cabela's than at Wally World. I also bought a pumpkin, a fairly good sized one, that I figured would make a nice jack-O-Lantern, after all it was October.
As you guessed by now, sooner or later we shot the Kimber. Don shot up some round to make sure it worked and I decided to wait. A few nights later, Don went out in the wee hours of the AM, him not being able to sleep, and he fired off a bunch of them. Some he fired right from his front porch and did not even wake me up!
The next day, I carved that pumpkin face. later on I told Don, "let's go shoot from the balcony", and he loaded up some Kimber mags. We had gone to JAX's Sporting Goods Fort Collins somewhere in the in-between, and Don had picked up some extra mags for it, though I supposed he already had enough .45 ACP mags around, he wanted new ones for this baby. Don fired off a mag full at the great Pumpkin, and I think hit it all 9 times. Yes he had bought Wilson Combat mags, 8 rounders, and also bought some sort of extension kit for his original Kimber mag. Then he let me fire it and I slammed it too, maybe missing once. It was about 30 or 35 yards away. As Don loaded up more mags, I checked to see he had his ears on, and I pulled out my Glock 19. I pretty much tore up Mr. Pumpkin Head, it seemed the 9mm rounds were doing more damage than the .45ACP. Then Don took more shots with the .45, and if I remember right we soon had it finished off between us into a pile of Pumpkin Pie ingredients 9just a figure of speech because I sure would not eat it, and I think neither would Don or his Kats).
Surprisingly enough, those 4 guns mentioned above are the only 4 I fired in the whole week out there. I never did light up the night sky, as I had planned, with a Mosan Nagant in 7.62x59R. Next time I guess.
All the best,
Glenn B
