Happy late Father's Day....

I got off work at 0700, and had to be back at work for another 10-hour shift at 1500. By 0708 I was sliding out of the town I work in, courtesy of the city scooter. By 0710, I had turned back around to pick up an envelope that I had forgotten. By 0717, I was back en route to Dad's house.

Dad lives much closer to my work than I do right now, though we will be changing that, presently. In the meantime, when I have an 8-hour turn-around between 10-hour shifts, I can garner an extra hour's shut-eye by sacking out in his spare bedroom.

I rolled into his driveway at about 0735, and howdy'd with Holly and far too many dogs, while Dad got ready in the master-bedroom and I shucked out of a duty belt and level II body-armor. Dad hollered, "I came across some of that good Power Point .22 ammo at the Fort Worth Gun Show, yesterday, that Rich and Ashley like so much. I bought a few bricks."

The ammunition he was referring to is a rather difficult commodity to come by: Winchester Power Point .22 L.R., in the silver box, has for the last couple of years been next to impossible to find. Rich and Ashley, through arduous testing, have found that it thumps surprisingly well, and surprisingly accurately, out to distances (you really wouldn't believe me if I told you) that far exceed what you would expect out of .22 LR rifle. With one of those marvelous adult-sized Kimber .22 LR rifles, varminting was impressive. But the ammunition hasn't been manufactured for some time, and it's been getting hard to find at any price, even for publishers in the gun industry. Dad had counted something of a coup in scoring several bricks.

I called back to him. "Good deal. You'll enjoy shooting that out of your 1909."

Silence. Then:"What? Um. Matt, you've shot my 1909. I'm talking about .22 Long Rifle rimfire ammunition. You're referring to a pre-WWI .45 Colt revolver." He seemed a bit torn, between being a little embarrassed for me that he should have to bring this little misstep up (in front of Holly, no less), and aghast that I should have made such a misstatement.

I handed him an envelope. "Here. This is for you." I should have said "Happy Father's Day. That's why I had gotten it.

He opened it up, and looked at the paper accompanying the two little steel items in baggies stapled to it. Then recognition dawned on him. "Oh! Now I get it." Holly asked what he had, and he explained: I had given him two sub-caliber inserts. One was an insert that would allow you to shoot a .32 acp round through a .308 Winchester rifle. The other was a chamber insert that would allow you to shoot a .22 L.R. through a firearm chambered to .45 Colt. The hole for the .22 round is off-set, so that the centerfire firearm's firing pin will detonate the rimfire cartridge. It even has a little short bit of rifling-- the bullet in no way contacts the .45 barrel. If I hadn't been cheap, I'd have bought him a whole cylinder-full.

So he reached into his bag-o'-gunshow-goodness, and came up with a box of RCBS .357 Sig dies. The man doesn't even own a firearm in that caliber. Aw. Then he started talking about loading with his favorite hundred-year-old powder.

Dad put on a sport coat, knotted his tie, and put on his hat, and ran off to answer the call to go serve jury duty. Holly didn't think that they'd ever choose an old retired cop like him, and voiced her expectation that he would be struck preemptively, right away. Watching the good-looking old man cruise out of his driveway, I thought "well that'd be their loss, wouldn't it?"