Friends, Hamburgers, Root Canals, and the Therapeutic .357...

[BruceB]

How's THAT for a confusing title???

Let me explain.

Curmudgeon escaped Pleasant Valley about a half-jump ahead of his "Evil Sister-in-Law", and came over to Winnemucca for a visit on Saturday. We spent some pleasant time looking for a new outdoor-range site, since the County range here was finally and absolutely closed some weeks ago. We found a very fine spot, properly oriented to shoot north into a mountainside, and I will be pushing to see if the place could be taken over by the County as range property. This spot was about 16 miles out of town, which is quite a change from the 800-yard journey to the old range.

On the way back in, we stopped at a gravel pit to shoot some goodies, most impressive of which was NVC's beautiful '91 Argentine. What a wonderful rifle that is!

Bill even scarfed up a FULL pail of clean wheelweights from a tire shop where he got the car re-shod.

Since we were also being assailed by pangs of hunger, we decided to test-drive the burgers at the Spare Time Bowling Center, of which I'd heard but never got around to trying. Ambrosia, manna, delectable.....as a confirmed connoisseur of hamburgers, I have to say that on a scale of ten, these were 11s! The place is a long jump ahead of what usually comes to mind on hearing "bowling alley"....it has a very nice dark-wood-panelled bar, for one thing, and quite up-scale to use Bill's words.

During all this, I was suffering to some degree from a rampant molar on the warpath. It really got nasty on Sunday. My dentist fitted me into the scedule for Monday afternoon, where I spent THREE HOURS in the torture device he laughingly calls a "chair". Yep, infected, inspected, detected, injected, and REAMED....you name it. Root canal work. Not a favorite pastime, sitting in that chair; it's actually more of a phobia I have against the dental profession. When the freezing wore off, it was BIGTIME hurt, not helped much by Advil, Tylenol or any others of the usual potions. Didn't (couldn't) sleep all Monday night, so finally got up and went to the shop.

Project? I need a Project! AAaaaahhh....500 rounds of empty .357 brass. Now, boolits? ...here we go! A sizeable drawerful of 358156, lubed and gaschecked! This will do! Naturally the Dillon 550 was set up for large primers and 7.62 NATO, but since I was mostly interested in distracting myself, I just eased along, giving the press a good cleaning and lubing while setting up for .357s. My standard load for the combo is 14.0 2400/CCI 500, so no heavy thinking was involved (good thing). So....as the sun finally rose this morning, I had a binful of shiny new .357 loads, and they had helped me get through the pain-filled dark hours of waiting for the dental help I needed. At 0730, I met my Doc at his clinic, he dosed me up with painkillers and antibiotics, and within a few hours there was vast improvement. Tonight, I will SLEEP!

[carpetman]

BruceB----You don't like Dentists---why didnt you fix er yourself? Get out the Dremel and grind off the bad parts---if you needed root canal they make drill bits that would reach down there. Fire up the lead pot and ladle in a little bit. If an upper tooth you would need to stand on your head---no problem--thats one of the gyrations you do when doing the BruceB casting. Only problem you would have would be where to attach the sprue plate. I think it was a Leupold catalog that did tell about a guy that tried pouring melted lead into a cavity----he only tried it once.

[powderburnerr]

So Bruce .. Did the whiner down the way finally get his way, and got the range closed .Dean

[BruceB]

Carpetman;

I recall that story....it was written by Jim Carmichael when he was still the back-page columnist for "Handloader" magazine, and it appears in his "Just Jim" book, which is a compilation of those columns. Seems it was the neighborhood (Tennessee) gunsmith who tried it. Jim had some highly unusual neighbors, to hear him tell it. I liked the line fom one of the foxhunters in another tale, waiting for the evening hunt to get underway: "Less git goin' afore the likker eats through the jugs!"


Dean;

Yep, one of this fool's kids had a bullet or two come through the window, avidly reported with pictures (with "circles and arrows" -Arlo Guthrie, 'Alice's Restaurant') in the local press.

The County Commissioners were really not left with much choice in the matter. Frankly, that range made me very nervous BEFORE the jerk built the house. Standing on the firing line with a .30-06, there were thousands of people within sight, and within easy range of a negligent discharge. Even when bullets were fired in the proper direction, the occasional ricochets which happen on any range were headed in the direction of extensive housing areas.

The fella that built the house happens to be a developer and one of the "good ol' boys" that afflict any small-town society. I suspect that a "fix" was definitely in, for him to get a building permit for that spot. I won't be surprised to see him developing the former range site, either. Putting his kids' safety at risk to accomplish this seems cynical and arrogant in the most extreme sense, to me.

Anyway, there's a LOT of pressure on the County to find a new range. The place Bill and I found would allow at least 400-yard shooting and maybe much more, distances being very deceptive to the eye over this open desert ground. Right now, the next edition of the Nevada Cast Bullet Shoot is up in the air for lack of a range, so I hope they do something soon..

[nighthunter]

Same thing has happened here in Pa. with my favorite club. I have been a member for almost 40 years and the houses keep getting closer and closer. A few folks have started to bitch about the noise and BB's on the roof BS. I can only say to them that this club was here for a long time before they built. Any realater tells folks to look at the neighborhood before they buy or build. What is there before them should be given preemptive rights if they are stupid enough to build a house near a rifle range. This should be included in the constitution. People are stupid and expect others to bow to their lifestyle. Shouldn't be that way.
Nighthunter

[Four Fingers of Death]

I had a root canal on an absessed tooth done many years ago and one night the tooth broke and left a jagged bit of tooth that was so sharp it cut into my tongue. Come morning I was due at work at 0600, some 40 miles away across the Sydney. The tooth didn't hurt as the nerve had been removed some years previously, but I had cut my tongue on it and was spitting out blood. I tried to sleep, but kept re opening the wound and dribbling blood everywhere. Finally about 2am, I went out to the car (old car, all tools and spares carried at all times :-) ) and got out the points file and filed off the sharp bit. I managed to get the bulk of it and stopped the bleeding and finally got to sleep. That day I was working in th eprison supervising the Dentist's parade. The Dentist was a petite slim stylish and rather highly strung aristrocratic Spanish woman who was feared by the inmates as she pulled teeth without compassion. I once saw her with her knee on a crook's chest trying to pull a tooth. On another day she actually broke one of her toth pulling pliers and had to go out to her car to get another. Man she was a unit! Anyway between customers, I asked her if she would take the sharp edge off the broken tooth as it was still cutting my tongue, I went on to tell her how I had done most of it already with the points file. She looked at me for a moment and fainted dead away, falling like a cleanly cut tree. Luckily, I caught her a moment before she cracked her head on the painted cement floor. The nurse took care of the tooth, which was properly fixed that afternoon, but Madame Lash went home for the rest of the day. :-)

When in the chair, I keep my eyes open and look into the dentist's eye's. Completely unerves them.
mick.

[Four Fingers of Death]

I forgot to mention, she is now the director of dentistry for the prison service now.

[9.3X62AL]

"Alice's Restaurant", indeed. I'm real conflicted about developers.......while I'm no Sierra Clubber, the pave-and-run land strumpets are an irritant as noisome as the tree-huggers--just at the opposite end of the spectrum. Enough of that, I'll start ranting and that's all bad.

I understand Bruce's concerns about safety issues with the former range, but it would still have taken a major and intentional misdirection of fire to put homes or highways in a "danger space" situation--at least, until a developer came along and built downrange from the firing line. I suspect in some past time the Commissioners probably relied on the common sense of the range users to protect the community. A novel concept in this day and age, and capably proven by the developer under discussion.

I wonder how the guy will get around the "heavy metal impact area" history when he goes to develop it. He only THINKS he started that "what about the children?" crapola concerning the alleged bullet impacts at the residence. Lead waste mitigation and cleanup is INCREDIBLY expensive. He might be able to buy off local politicos, but EPA might prove a taller hurdle to vault. I sincerely wish him every possible expense, complication, and roadblock.

[9.3X62AL]

GREAT story, Mick!

[nighthunter]

Gotta remember one thing ... out here in the boonies of Pa. (yea ... they still exist) we still drill a hole in the ground and drink well water. Only a fool would put a well near a range that has been used for 75 years.
Nighthunter

[NVcurmudgeon]

Bruce, glad you ejoyed Saturday as much as I did, especially in view of your ordeal at the hands of "Doc Holiday" on Monday. I wonder if the rapacious developer has been too smart by half. It would be tragic if the old range and bullet impact area were to prove undevelopable. Of course, for a swinging fee, perhaps local casters could mine the backstops. This would be in the interest of the children and the environment, naturally.

[nvbirdman]

Last time I went to the dentist I was wearing my gun club t-shirt. I told the dentist I was attempting to intimidate him. Didn't do any good.

[454PB]

My daughter works for an endodontist, so all they do is root canals. She told me of a gal that had a tooth that was hurting and abcessed, so she pulled it herself. Unfortunately, it was the wrong tooth.

She was in "the chair", and the endodontist was reviewing all the digital X-rays. She asked him why this was taking so long, as she was in a lot of pain. He replied "I don't know how you do-it yourselfers do root canals, but this is the way I work."

I don't know how expensive they are in the rest of the world, but they are around $800 in my world, and that doesn't include the crown. My daughter told me they have had customers moved to Mt. from back east, and they paid up to $3000:roll:

[Four Fingers of Death]

I remember one dentist when I had an absess, he drilled the tooth and there was a rush of pain, followed by a flood of smelly muck and then the pain settled down to a dull roar. The smell of the built up infected tooth was awful and I was a bit embarrased about it and apoligised to the dentist. he said 'no prob, if you want to drive the Mercedes, you have to do the hard yards!' Mick.

[SharpsShooter]

Great stuff Mick!


SS