I don't know exactly what happened to my black cloud lately, it seems to be allowing in some sunshine. Maybe it has something truly nefarious planned for me and is giving me a break until it unleashes that storm upon me but I am enjoying the sunshine that has been getting through in my life lately. No, I have not won the lottery, have not had my horse cross the finish line first against great odds, have not inherited My Fortune (not even the one Ralph Kramden got in The Honeymooners), I have not found a great paying second career job, nor have I found a hot young girlfriend with lots of money who is just looking to please me. My rays of sunshine have been coming down on me in little bits for the most part and in some full sunny and gorgeous days - so to speak..
I have not had any bad news from my doctors lately (which really is a big ray of sunshine after the cancer). Other than that, most of my sunshine, or luck, has come in little things but nice things. For instance, after my brother passed away, my sister-in-law let Brendan and me take some things of his as remembrances when we visited her. I got a knife that I gave him years ago, an old Schrade sheath knife that was made in the USA. Brendan spotted a bayonet and asked if he could have that. He now owns a Fiskars m27 bayonet, a fairly amazing WWII militaria find among my brother's belongings for sure. I also recently sent a shotgun to Browning for repair, the repair turned out to be a minor one and cost me nothing except the shipping charge to the factory, add to that that the job was finished ahead of schedule and yep that made for some sunshine in my life. Then there is the fact that when I just checked, on my Priority Club account, to see if there was a Holiday Inn up in New Hampshire, close to the upcoming Northeast Bloggershoot, not only did I find a convenient hotel, but was able to book the kind of room I wanted and I had enough Priority Points to get it for free with enough left over for an additional night if I desire.
I also recently placed an order with Sportsmansguide.com. for some ammo. I had just about given up on them after a disagreement about a previous batch of ammo I got from them which they, I think, had falsely advertised on their website by showing it as very different than what it was when I received it. Same ammo as advertised just that the quality control on it has gone down markedly and some manufacturing techniques had obviously changed on it but they showed it the old way. Used to be sealed military style ammo, now no longer sealed and so on but they showed pics ofit as sealed. I got a nasty gram from the when complained and was going to drop them as an ammo supplier but their prices could not be beat and sometimes you have to go with the principal of being able to afford ammo, to have enough on hand, as a priority over other principles such as that of good customer service. As I said, I tried them again. I received the ammo today and not only was it left in a ray of sunshine on my front stoop but the ammo gods must have been smiling down to me too because something in the advertisement picture, that I did not expect to get, came with the ammo.
You see, the tin Spam-like can of 640 rounds of Tulammo 7.62x39 ammo that I ordered was actually delivered inside a sealed cardboard box. Inside that box was the expected Spam type ammo can and something a little extra. That little bit extra was a very unexpected (but highly hoped for and often sought after) Russian, ammo can opener! It used to be, when military surplus ammo was shipped in Spam type cans, an opener would be included within each ammo case. An ammo case contained two (2) ammo cans, thus there was one opener for each two cans. This military surplus ammo, in the particular types of cans to which I refer, came from the USSR or Eastern Bloc nations. When the milsurp ammo was sold by online dealers, here in the USA, it was often sold by the individual can. If you were lucky, they sent you the opener with your order of a single can, if unlucky then you were the guy who got the can without the opener. Sometimes, dealers also would not send out the openers with an ammo order at all but collected them, then offered the openers for sale at an outrageous price. The openers were none to easy to come by.
Last time I got one of the openers was when I bought a can of 7.62x54R at a gun show in Philly over ten (10) years ago! You can safely bet, I have ordered my fair share of Eastern Bloc ammo in sealed cans since then. I just was never lucky enough to get another can opener with those orders and, as my luck would have it, I threw out or lost the old one before ever realizing how tough they would prove to get. Well, now I have one. I will not have to resort to other methods to open my Russian ammo cans since the current manufacturer was good enough to include an opener along with a single ammo can. What a nice touch on the part of Tulammo. Hopefully the ammo will be up to decent manufacturing standards and will hit that at which we are shooting and will feed, go bang, extract and eject without problems. I have heard pretty good things about this budget ammo and finding the ammo can opener in the box makes me think the ammo will be okay.
Of course, if you are not lucky enough to have one of the can openers, and need to open one of the Spam type ammo cans, there are ways to do it. I have seen people use: a hammer and chisel, a big strong bladed knife, a pry bar, a pair of tin snips, and a hammer and screwdriver. The method that seemingly worked the best and seemed easiest was the hammer and screwdriver method. You can view that here:
http://ballseyesboomers.blogspot.com/2011/04/opening-russian-or-any-communist-bloc.html
All the best,
Glenn B
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