Great morning today.
I had to run up to the club today because nobody bought bird food for the leftover pheasants.  I ended up spending the morning.  Got my limit of trout and pheasant.  Still haven't gotten the trout/pheasant/deer trifecta but it was a nice morning.  Took out my Vanguards.  The .243 is ready for deer season, but my .30-06 needs some more work.  I took the action out of the stock and now my reloads shoot 10 inches low.  Oh well.  My 100gr partitions are spot on at 100 yds in my .243.  Didnt go home empty handed!!  Great day!

So looking back at old posts, Troy had the 2012 catalog in his hands on October 1, 2011.  I see lots of "sneak peeks" on facebook.
Anybody get their hands on one yet?  Any news of when they will be officially are released?  Will printed ones be available?

Can't wait to see more of the WBY X stuff for us Generation Xers.

I finally got all my pieces together and had time to mount my scope on my new Vanguard.  I got the Talley lightweight scope mounts right from Weatherby and mounted them on the rifle.  I put the scope on the mounts and looked thru it..... it all seemed good until I tried to increase the magnification on the scope.  The stop nut on the locking ring of the scope magnification hits the scope mount. 

So I'm feeling kinda stupid right now and here's why.  I ran to the gun safe and pulled out another Vanguard to see if I'm mounting the new one correctly... I was doing it same as before.  This is my first Burris scope so its a little different.  So I figured i can just turn the front mount around 180degrees.  Scope fits fine.  Then I looked on the Weatherby site and it now appears that my other Vanguards have the front scope mounts on backwards. 

So here is the question.... is there a right and wrong way?  The rear mount most certainly goes one way.  But the front mount seems to work either way.  I'd argue that they can go either way because my other Vanguards have the front mount backwards and they are both shooters.  (and most would probably say if its a shooter leave it alone!!)  I admit that I guessed on my first rifle and it seemed to work out great so I just followed suit on the next ones.  Does it matter??

It never ceases to amaze me that when I buy a Weatherby, I get a personalized letter from Ed Weatherby.  Each time I fill out my card to register my rifle and I fill in the comment section with whatever is on my mind regarding my purchase and Weatherby.  Each letter I receive thanks me for my purchase and has a small tidbit about my comment, proving that someone at the company, presumably Ed, reads my comments.  WOW.  A company that still listens to their customers!!

Just another reason why I'm still hooked on Weatherby.

So I took my birthday jaunt to the local gun store today, a store I have never been to and its not one of the big box stores that still sell guns here in CT.  I noticed they sell way more handguns than rifles.  I was happy to see some nice Weatherby Deluxe models!!

But anyway, the main part of my post...  I do not yet have my pistol carry permit and it's been on my list for a while.  Looks like I will be taking this course with my wife and my 72yr old mother.  I'm thrilled that they are taking interest in shooting.  I am out of touch with pistols and have not shopped for one in 22yrs.  I notice that there are big, compact, and subcompact models.  I have my Beretta 9mm from my military days, but I don't know anything about handguns nowadays.  I know what I would be shopping for personally, but I need help guiding the ladies in the right direction.

What kind of pistol would you recommend for a woman... now my wife and mother are both about 5ft tall and petite, not to say that arent tough as nails.  Obviously, they need to feel comfortable shooting and carrying it.  I would take them shopping and make sure it is a good fit first.   It would be primarily used for protection.... for concealed carry or in home protection.  Like everything else, there are tons of choices. Anybody have any experience in a decent handgun that would be suitable AND effective for a smaller statured woman?  I am not even sure about caliber at this point.  When the time comes, I will take them both hands on shopping, but I am looking for an idea on where to start.

While I'm on the topic of pistol permits, I see places are now offering a Utah nonresident certification that is supposed to be reciprocal in 29 other states.  Does anybody have any experience with this and is it worthwhile if I were to travel to those states?  As far as CT goes, I need to take the certified pistol course, then get it signed off on in my town, and then in the state to be legal to carry.

I'm still chuckling about the prospect of having a pistol packin' mama!!

So, off the wall question... Anybody out there raise chickens or other types of food/game animals?

This year there were several incidents where pheasant farms were devistated and thousands of birds got loose.  I always wondered how easy it would be to just raise my own rather than buy em from a farm.  The wife has always wanted chickens, so I figured that may be a good starting point.  Is it worth the effort? How hard is it really??  So when tractor supply gets thier birds I'm ready to pick up half a dozen hens. City ordinance says I can have 20.  I plan to have a coop under my deck with a run that includes my garden areas so they can scratch and debug my veges.  Now the wife and I talked about this before and I nodded and smiled and pretended to go along with it, but she presented a pretty good case that was backed up in this weeks Hartford Courant.  A $12 bag of feed can get me by each month (according to the author) and he gets 10-12 eggs  a week with only two of  five birds laying. 

So is this crazy or is this science experiment going to be something really cool?  One day I'd love to have the space to raise more animals and even have a stocked pond of catfish, but here in the city I think this may be an interesting idea.  Now I'm home all day and my wife and kids have the summer off, so we're around to do all the chores that are involved (and yep i'm expecting to take on 99% of the job just like if we got a dog.) 
Thoughts?  Ideas??

I know it not a typical Weatherby topic, but you guys come from all over and lets face it, hunting is filling the freezer just like chickens will provide eggs and meat.

Wow... this has been an insane few days for me.  Here in CT we got hit with a foot of snow last Saturday.  With so many leaves still on the trees, we had limbs and brances down all over the place and about 950,000 people lost power.  As of today, I have no power, phone or internet.  I have a generator,  but it is not hooked up to my furnace.  It wouldnt be so bad i I didnt have 2 little girls.  It was 51 degrees in the house today. 
We have been camping out at a friends house and i've been making rounds to help people out. Mom cant get her generator started so i have to get it going for her.  Thankfully, she has power now and we are staying with her tonight.   My mother in law is still out of power like us and she'll be over here at least for dinner. 
It amazes me how much damange this storm did.  It also amazes me how long it is taking to restore power.  We are expected to get it back on Sunday with will make 8 days with no power, heat or phone.  We had no cell service at our house until yesterday.  It was 3 days of driving around various parts of the state before I saw a utility truck.  It was 4 before I saw town crews clearing trees in my neighborhood.  Its funny that I was always looking at living in the city as a good thing because we would get fixed quick becasue of the high population area.  Not the case in this storm. Its been 5 days and we still have 430,000 people in the state without power and only about 100,000 get restored daily. 

At least i have an internethookup and my laptop at moms... I have a weeks worth of The Nation to catch up on.

We had a pretty cool surprise tonight.  I heard a sound that got my attention. We had a B-17 buzzing the city.  I caught a glimpse of it as it flew by in the distance, but then to my surprise it flew right over my house during our dinner out on the deck.  My wife took this pic. On my computer you can zoom in on it pretty well.

There can't be too many of these flying around any more.  I got pretty excited at seeing this treat!!