The Big Reno Show (December '07 version)

[BruceB]

As usual, it was fascinating.

At long last, I realized a dream of some years' standing, and managed to free up enough time to actually stay overnight in the same hotel/casino in which the Show is held. This made life FAR more pleasant, as I have some serious problems with my feet and their tolerance for long periods without resting is very limited.

What was even better was the opportunity to spend a lot of time with my good friend NVCurmudgeon, and I'm sure we discombobulated more than a few dealers as we made our way around the Show. I find myself seized with a sort of ....what, arrogance?....as we discussed moulds and cast bullets with a few dealers who know just about nothing on the subject. I tried to conceal my attitude, and hope I succeeded. There wasn't much in the casting line, although a few moulds were there for inspection. A Lyman 450 was going for $50 in very nice shape, but I already have three so both Bill and I passed.

A pleasant gunsmith took hold of my S&W Model 19 and fixed the non-adjusting elevation feature of the rear sight for $15. THAT was a very fine deal indeed. I found a Redfield 3-12X scope which had never been mounted on a rifle, and bought it for $135. Also found a couple of pairs of Herrett's discontinued "Shooting Star" grips for some of my S&W revolvers. Totally smitten by the sales appeal, I HAD to buy a black T-shirt with BIG white letters spelling "INFIDEL" in English and Arabic. I love it, as it's a simple statement which does NOT say "Bring it on!"...but could easily be interpreted that way!

An un-used Dillon 550B conversion unit for .223 leaped into my satchel too, as it was cheaper than Dillon's catalog price AND required no shipping charges.

Curmudgeon and I (both left-handers, if truth be known) were tickled to find a dealer who had six or seven left-handed rifles (out of maybe a dozen) on his rack. I had VERY SERIOUS trouble in turning-down a M96 Swede 6.5x55, high-polish blue in a VERY NICE left-handed custom stock and with a fine Bausch & Lomb scope, for a measly $375...rifle alone for $275, and an absolute steal at that price. I just could not bring myself to adopting yet another caliber, even though I do have the dies on hand. I sold-off my 6.5 moulds etc at the last Nevada Shoot.

There are still good deals to be had. We visited with another very pleasant dealer who was selling some superb-condition older S&W revolvers at very fair prices...like a 4" Highway Patrolman AS NEW for about $425. I saw quite a few Colt Woodsmen at prices I'd pay, as well as a fair number of decent Krags at "shooter" prices (under $1000) . Then there was the beat-up Mosin-Nagant 91/30 for $295!!!! There were many Trapdoor Springfields present, running from about $700 for doggy ones to a museum-quality gorgeous beauty at $3500...blazing case-hardening and not a nick or scratch anywhere! Anyone like 1941 Johnsons? Bring money, because the least-expensive I saw was over two grand, and a real creampuff, about the best I've ever seen, was tagged at over $4000.

The truly interesting thing about the Show lies in the chance to see guns that you will NEVER be able to see, let alone handle, anywhere else. The Winchester collectibles are enough to make a man salivate, if that's his 'bag', and the Lugers and Mauser pistols are much the same. Add in the Drillings, the Barrett .50s, the Berkley Police Department Thompsons and 1897 shotguns, and untold numbers of other stuff...it's EASY to spend two full days without seeing everything. I woulda LOVED to buy the 3"-bore Napoleon field piece, an exquisite brass gun with stainless liner and executed like a work of art, all 1500 pounds of it, but I seemed a bit shy of the $6500 asking price.

It's a highly-recommended event. One thing we remarked on was seeing folks carrying all sorts of firearms right through the casino/hotel lobby. I even saw a gent with a beer in one hand and an M1A in the other, and NOBODY turned a hair. I do wonder about the internal reaction of Bay Area visitors or those just off the bird from Boston, etc.

I ended the visit with a lunch in company with NVC, Urny and LINDA, and Ammohead. Our paths also crossed with that of Brazos, so one never knows just who might appear.

On Thursday, before the Show opened, I visited the new Cabela's store and found the visit worthwhile. They have nowhere near the amount of stuff in the store that appears in the catalog, but I reckon that's to be expected.

[Urny]

Visiting with BruceB, NVC and Ammohead was the high point of an otherwise uneven weekend. On the way down Friday AM, about 0500, I hit a deer driving LINDA's two week old Avalanche. Modern vehicles are wonderfully tough and safe, though the deer might have another opinion, and after the State Trooper did his work and released us, we went back home, did our bit with our insurance company, took the Avalanche to the body shop, and went on to Reno and got there in time to check in to our hotel.

While we were having breakfast Saturday morning, we got a call on LINDA's cell phone to let us know her dad had passed away shortly before. She handled the news as well as might be expected, and decided to continue to the show where the presence of friends and other like minded people was a comfort to both of us. We will be leaving for Colorado Tuesday for the services and to be with family. Prayers of those who are believers would be welcome.

I have been to larger shows in California, Utah, Texas, Colorado and Ohio, but never any more enjoyable to me. We like books, quality old scopes, casting equipment of all sorts, bolt action and single shot rifles of all makes, and Savage 99 lever guns. Also good tools and firearms maintenance supplies and implements. Did I mention books? All these are well represented at the Reno show, with a very good assortment of the Northern and Central European rifles that appeal to both of us so much. Had we not been so distracted, it is likely that a Fecker small game scope with proper mounts would have followed us home, or the Carl Zeiss, Jena, 8x56 with the three bar reticle. Lovely devices, both, though very different.

But what really makes this show shine is the society of people we like and respect very much, and get to see far to seldom. Had we not found this board, in it's original form at Shooters long ago, we would not have met all these grand people. There's a thoroughly acceptable hamburger available at Johny Rocket's, too, and joining our friends there for lunch was a real treat. Our thanks to NVC and Fran for their hospitallity following the show.

It would be a special pleasure to get to see more of you there.

[Frank46]

URNY, please accept my condolences on the passing of Linda's father.Regards. Frank

[MT Gianni]

Great reading about the Show and with the passing of you FIL and Bill's friend and mentor it was a rough weekend emotionally I bet. Thank God for friends and shared times. Gianni

[NVcurmudgeon]

I can't add much to what Bruce and Urny have already said. Having very recently blown most of "The Gun Fund" on a CZ 527/.22 Hornet, I was relatively impoverished for this show. I did pick up a book, and THE sheath. I have been carrying a cardboard template for a couple of years to gunshows in the hope of fnding a sheath for a favorite knife. At the bottom of a holster dealer's junk box I found a perfect $3 sheath. Along with Bruce, I was much taken by the nice collecton of LH rifles at one table. The 6.5 X 55 M1896 was especially appealing, but realizing that I have a fine semi-custom .260 Remington 700 already made me exercise good sense for once. After all, what is a .260 but a naturalized 6.5 Swedish? (Bruce, about two hours after you left, the 1896 and the .308 Savage were both gone. That man had some very reasonable prices on some very nice rifles.) I am always up for drooling over fine guns, but the most enjoyable part for me was being in the company of good friends. As always, when friends who don't see each other often enough get together, we had seven conversations going between five people at Johnny Rocket's. I'm afraid we were maybe a little loud, but we can blame it on being handicapped. As veteran shooters all, we are all a bit hard of hearing!

[9.3X62AL]

Urny and Bill--Marie and I extend our thoughts and prayers to your families at this time of loss.

[Wayne Smith]

More prayers just left for all ya'all. Wish there was a show like that around here.

[PatMarlin]

Sorry to here if your wife's loss Urny.

I really wanted to go to the show, but we had just got back from driving to Spokane and was there over a week, so I was dead road tired.

Next year I'm there and will make it an annual cast boolit event.. :drinks:

[shotstring]

Reading accounts of a good gun show brings back memories. Sigh. Haven't been in a long time, but so many good deals were often to be had...particularly on day one. I remember giving some good deals too. Your tale of the M96 Swede reminded me of the gun show I attended in the Mid 1990's, where I sold off most of my gun collection. I had worked at a gun store where I got to dig through an entire shipment of Swedes, finding one in unfired condition and the other in mint condition - 100% bluing and no wear. I sold both at the gunshow for $25 each. :roll: Someone sure got a deal. I guess I was disappointed in both the ammo cost as well as the fact that the beautiful tangent style sights would not allow point of impact to be set below 350 yards. Apparently someone thought that battle accuracy justified it, but it mystifyed me.

[NVcurmudgeon]

Reading accounts of a good gun show brings back memories. Sigh. Haven't been in a long time, but so many good deals were often to be had...particularly on day one. I remember giving some good deals too. Your tale of the M96 Swede reminded me of the gun show I attended in the Mid 1990's, where I sold off most of my gun collection. I had worked at a gun store where I got to dig through an entire shipment of Swedes, finding one in unfired condition and the other in mint condition - 100% bluing and no wear. I sold both at the gunshow for $25 each. :roll: Someone sure got a deal. I guess I was disappointed in both the ammo cost as well as the fact that the beautiful tangent style sights would not allow point of impact to be set below 350 yards. Apparently someone thought that battle accuracy justified it, but it mystifyed me.

shoestring, not sure where this came form, possibly Al Miller of Handloader about Italian Carcanos with fixed sights and high zeroes. A century ago European soldiers were trained to hold for the belt buckles of the enemy. The theory was that such a sighting gave a very long hitting range on an erect target. Even our own '03 Springfield had a battle sight zeroed for +/- 547 yd. That would facilitate gut shooting at 547 yds. and chest or head hits at lesser distances without having to adjust sights.

[shotstring]

I figured it was something like that NV. Still, why would a country put all that money into a very expensive adjustable sight that had no need of adjustment?

I guess the other extreme would be the Browning HiPowers with tangent sights (which I strangely love for some reason). I wonder how many times someone actually took a shot at an enemy at 400 or 500 meters with a 9mm cartridge and a 5" barreled handgun with very expensive sights incremented up to 500 meters?

[jim4065]

Read somewhere that the reason original Colt BP revolvers shoot so high is because in those days you started shootin' when they were WAY out - 150 yards was a reasonable range to start firing a pistol. Don't know if that's true - but in '64 our "battle sight zero" was 250 meters with an M14. They figured on an 18 inch vertical target, if memory serves.