For starters I installed a Davis double set trigger on my Renegade .54 flinter with GM 1:70 RB barrel. Then dissassembled the lock on my Firestorm .50 flinter and painstakingly de-burred and honed all of the surfaces of the tumbler and sear with India and Arkansas stones to get them butter smooth. That gun had a horrendous trigger pull from the cast surface on those parts. Now it's SWEET! No, I didnt remove any metal, just polished them smooth. Then I ran a patch dampened with ballistol down the bores of some of the ML's I haven't shot for some time to make sure they're still protected. Now if it ever stops raining I can get back to shootin'.....BPS

There's something about a rainy stretch that drives many of us to things like that (or just picking up a gun or two and sighting on a spot on the wall). I think it's a DNA thing.

That DNA thing is an interesting statement. I always wondered why I gravitated so much towards the outdoor sports of hunting and fishing. I was raised by a single parent, my mother, and she didn't hunt or fish. But my father was an avid hunter/fisherman. And even though I never knew him, I followed that same path. The strange thing is, out of the four boys (no daughters) my parents had, I am the only one who hunts and fishes. I guess they just didn't get that particular strand of DNA.

Well I can't get to work. All roads out of my village are blocked/flooded. I'm thinking of either opeing the garage door in the basement, turing on the big fan and start casting some RBs or should I go up and climb in bed with the wife? Hmmmm....I wonder how much propane I have for my stove?!

There has to be something to the DNA thing. My father and all my uncles, on both sides, were hunters. Myself and my four brothers are all hunters. Our three sons hunt and our two daughters married hunters. Our eleven grandsons and four of our granddaughters are hunters. We have a nine year-old great-grandson who is well on his way to being an avid hunter like his father. Every fall , starting in mid September and running to just before Christmas, you would think we were having a ongoing family reunion with all our offspring coming up here to hunt. Quite a few come up during the summer to fish. Some of them even come up when it is twenty below to go ice fishing. Luckily this big old farmhouse has four extra bedrooms to accommodate them when they come.

On the bad days, I usually like to run a patch through the bores of all my rifles, muzzleloaders, handguns, and center fires, then wipe them down. That usually takes care of half the day or more. Before I wipe them down, I always like to fondle them and think about the last time I got to shoot them, and how they did...its a guy thing I am sure.

Last week I (got down on my hands and knees ... the knees are a no no the doctor said) and cleaned out the two shelves under the gun rack. Dusted, polished all the wood. (The disadvantages of a wood stove is the very fine dust that floats all over the house, as us wood burners know too well) Then I went through all the scopes, cartridges for the center fires, the shotgun loads, etc.. wiped all that down and put every thing back in a neat orderly manner.

Maybe this week I will attack the bullet shelf and organize all of them again. Although they are not too bad, because I put in those long rails that hook off the peg board like you see in stores, so now all my caliber sabots are one rod, all the nipples, vent holes, etc are another rod.. looks kind of nice. Although I had a friend ask me where I kept the shopping carts last week. I told him outside behind the garage...

Dave, I know exactly what you mean. Its something when you walk into a sporting goods store and think to yourself 'my stock is bigger than his'!

Living where almost every winter we get snowed in for a couple of days two or three times I do my best to line up gun related projects to keep from going nuts in the bad weather. Reconditioning old single shotguns is a hobby of mine and as it stands now I have six waiting for my attention. I pick them up at farm and estate sales for next to nothing and end up giving most of them to the young ones as the first gun of their own. There is something about bringing a old beat up gun back to life that is good for the soul. One project I am anxious to get started on is a cap-lock Trapper Pistol kit. I have to fight myself to leave it until winter is here.

I seem to be different. I do all my gun chores at night time. If I plan to go shooting on a day it's raining. I go anyway. I found out when I was young that I don't shrink when I get wet. Neither do my guns.

Do you stay home when it rains during hunting season?

yeahh but other parts shrink when they get cold and wet