The Screaming Viking

Headed out to Casselton to the gun range tonight to put a couple of rounds through the muzzle loader.  It’s been years since I’ve shot it and the barrel has suffered from years of corrosion.  I was able to clean it up quite a bit and she fired successfully on the farm.  I didn’t check on it’s accuracy, just made sure it would fire.  I gave it another cleaning and stored it.

I have been contemplating getting a few of the accessories I had been missing or had broken for the muzzle loader.  I needed to make sure it was still accurate and useful for hunting before I bought those items.  SO off to the gun range I go…

I get there and shove a charge down the barrel, put the cap on and throw it to my shoulder….pop…no bang.  Shit!  I pull the nipple off and see that it is very corroded.  I replace it with a new one…shoulder the weapon..pop…BANG!  Life!  I shove another round down the barrel and it worked fine.  A few more rounds and she seems pretty accurate.  I guess it will work for hunting…

When I get home I have to deal with the real pain in the ass of shooting this god damn thing…the need for an immediate cleaning.  That is by far the biggest pain and deterrent from shooting these fawkers.  It seems a little strange, but the first step in cleaning them is to run hot soapy water up and down the barrel.  Afterwards, it needs to dry good then gets oiled up.  It’s such a process…

So for the past 4 years, every time I’ve gone home I have been looking for a holster that my old man made for me.  It was a “risque” design on a holster for my .45 ruger vaquero.  He made it for me just after I had bought the gun, I suppose I was 20 or so.  I had kept the gun in there every day for years, but it was hard on the pistol.  It caused it to begin to corrode and so forth.  I took it out of there and cleaned it up…and the holster disappeared.

The old man has started leather working again, and he showed me the gun belt he was building for his .357.  The design on the holster was the same as mine…and that sparked my desire to find that holster again.  It has to be at the house somewhere.  I looked everywhere I could think of…nothing.  I had searched the gun cabinet several times, but it is poorly lit and I had never taken everything out to do a complete search.  This time I took all the guns out and searched as completely as possible.  Buried deep in the corner of the cabinet…there it was.

It has been kind of a pain to walk around the hills with no secure way to carry the pistol, I could have bought another holster but it wouldn’t have been the same quality and certainly not the same design the old man put together for me.  Beyond that, there are very few items that carry any sentimental value for me.  Guns and hunting have always been a common ground for the old man and I.  We spent most of my adolescence and early adulthood fighting, but we got along well when we were hunting.  For quite a while I took for granted all the leather work the old man did for us, wallets, sheaths…etc…now with his failing health these items are no longer being made.

Given the break in just down the street from us, I’ve been taking a little more precautions around the house.  Nothing major, I just make sure all the windows on the first level are locked and the doors are locked up before bed.  It would suck if someone got in when we were gone, but it would be really freaky to have someone come in to your house when your home.  I had been curious how the dogs would act if someone came in to the house.  There is no doubt in my mind the Sarge would sleep through most anything…the little bastard doesn’t move once he’s out.  Sara was over a friends house the other nite, she stayed out pretty late.  I was in bed when she came home.  I’d heard the door open and apparently so did grace.  She woke up and took off out the bedroom door like a little black rocket.  Got to the top of the stairs and was growling at Sara coming through the door.  Once she started growling, the Sarge woke up and sprung in to action as well.  I don’t think they would be able to fight off someone breaking in to the house…but they should make enough noise that I wake up and can handle things.  I’m a pretty light sleeper anyhow.

As part of the preparing effort, I have written down all the serials of my guns along with an approximate purchase date.  I’m sure the pistols would be gone and never seen again, but the odds of the rifles surfacing are slightly better I’d think.  It surprised me how many of my guns have been gifts from the old man. The first one was an woodchucker .22.  This is bar none the best kids .22 I have ever seen.  It is spot on accurate, the action is smooth and you can drag that thing through a swamp and it will still fire.  It’s a very nice little gun.  It’s quite small and must have been designed for a kid.  The next was a .30-06 he gave to me after my first deer season.  It was a caliber we didn’t have and it’s a versatile round for many forms of big game.  The next year, he gave me a muzzleloader.  A summer later, we went down to the Williston area to visit the old man’s uncle.  He had a double barreled fox/savage 12 gauge.  I was enamored with the gun, so the old man bought it for me.  After carrying that gun around hunting pheasant it became very clear it just wasn’t a practical weapon for me at the time.  Then came the first gun I bought for myself.  I decided I needed a short barreled .45 with an over sized ring.  I went in to Scheels and they advised me the gun I wanted wasn’t made….so I bought a .30-30 in the same style (years later…my brother bought the exact type of rifle I wanted…don’t make it my ass).  I traded off my very -very- heavy double barreled 12 gauge for it, upon reflection that’s a trade I’d like to have back.  In any case, I was now without a shotgun…that isn’t a situation the old man was going to let last long.  He bought me an 870 shortly there after.  It’s short…light…and I haven’t put a round through it yet.  After that I bought this “cowboy style” vaquero .45.  A guy from back home gave it to the old man to make a holster for it.  He told us to go ahead and mess around with it some if we want…after I put the first round through it I decided I needed to have that gun.  I took a job flippin burgers to make the money to buy it off him.  After that came the .270.  I had wanted one for awhile, but the .30-30 was doing everything I needed it to as far as hunting was concerned.  I had started using a smaller round for the .30-06 for deer and that didn’t tear them up as bad.  The .270 was my brother’s rifle…so it’s a love/hate relationship.  After that I picked up the Glock…because the woman told me I wouldn’t do it.  The same year, the old man picked me up a 9mm…because we didn’t have one.

I spent a lot of time growing up pissed off at the old man…upon reflection it seems he was paying attention to the important stuff.

I’ve never had to buy a sharpening stone before.  In the past when a knife has been dull I’ve had the luxury of a wet stone, belt sander..etc.  Sharpening was a matter of a couple of min at the bench and we were good to go for the season.  A small wet stone for touch up work was all that was needed.

Fast forward to now.  I’m not on the farm anymore and I get to experience the joy of picking up my own equipment.  Not that it’s a bad thing…it’s just a shitload cheaper to use the old man’s tools.  This past Sunday I picked up Smith’s Diamond Sharpening Stone from Scheels for 20 bucks.  I wanted something of decent quality, but it also needed some type of hard case so it didn’t break when I carried it around in my back pack.  From looking at the package, this item fit the bill perfectly…but would it sharpen my knives?

I have a little bit of a variety of knives.  I have a pocket knife from buck, then two hand crafted knives.  one uses a commercial blade and one is completely hand crafted from start to finish (by my old man).  I used the stone on the buck knife first.  The buck had a very good edge on it from the factory, so I don’t know that I’ve ever sharpened it.  The stone has two sides, a coarse side and a fine side.  Obviously if your knife is extremely dull, you cut it on the coarse side, then finish up with the fine side.  For the buck, I went right for the fine side.  In just a few swipes I found it virtually as sharp as the day it came from the factory.  At this point, I was satisfied the sharpener fit the bill and would do what I wanted it to…not impressed mind you…just satisfied.

Later on that evening I decided to put an edge back on all my knives.  I grabbed the hand made knife with the commercial blade.  The steel is this is just like a regular high quality hunting knife you would buy from the store.  The metal is stained a bit from being in the sheath (I’ll polish that out next time I go to the farm) but the edge has always been good.  It’s about a 5-6 inch blade.  The handle is made of deer horn that curves back in to your palm as you hold it.  My dad used to make cases for the guy that built these knives.  One day I made a comment about really liking the style of this one and the old man bought it for me.

I slapped this knife to the stone for a little bit, then tested the edge.  It seemed to be sharpening only 1/2 the blade.  I switched up my technique a little bit and tested the edge again, perfect.  It took me a little bit to get use to the need for a long complete stroke instead of small circles that I use on a wet stone.  When I switched from the circles to full length strokes the edge was on almost instantly.

Then came the real test of this pig.  The knife I use the most is the one my old man made for me.  He used a torch to cut the shape of the blade from a drill disk.  He used horn and leather to build the handle. Given this knife hasn’t been through a commercial tempering process, the edge on it is a little finiky.  It takes a bit to put one on there, but it lasts for a long time.  I decided to start grinding this one on the coarse side, then flipped it over to fine and ground that out a little.  It didn’t take long at all and this one had a good edge on it too.

After putting this stone through the gambit of blades, it seems like a pretty damn good little tool.  The key to this little bastard though, is the technique used for sharpening the blade.  If you use the proper technique, it takes no time at all to finish up an edge.