21 - 22 October, 2010 Shootin' - n - Sewing

We did more work on the Uhaul.  Susan got the rest of the box painted.  We had a bunch of problems with the paint sprayer.  I finally firgured out that a rod that fit inside a plastic piston was coming loose.  I tried a dab of super glue to the rod and it worked.  Of course I had the stupid thing apart about a dozen times before I figured it out.  Susan washed clothes and we sorted the last of the potatoes and put them in the root cellar.

The big game rifle season begins tomorrow.  I checked the zero on a couple of rifles and did a little reloading.  I'm having some problems with one rifle.  I may have to start a thread on it to see if anyone has any ideas about what's going on.  Susan made a dress for our second youngest grandaughter for her first birthday.  It's very cute.  She dug up the Jerusalem artichokes in the garden then we brought all the sheets and blankets in for storage over the winter.

This is one of the grids for the ceiling in the Uhaul.

Susan got the rest of the box painted.

Wash day!

Susan's deciding which color touse on the dress.  It will go around the seam on the waist.

The finished product!

Digging the artichoke roots.

This is our first time growing these.  They did well but aren't nearly as productive per square foot as potatoes, rutabagas or turnips.  We're going to plant more next year and get them started earlier.

The Jerusale Artichoke bed ready for witner.

I moved the goatling to a new area today.  Looks like he found plenty to eat.  I'm starting to wonder if they have pouches (like the cheek pouches on a gerbil) instead of a stomach.

We've been discussing reloading on one of the threads so I thought I'd bring up some of my saved brass to illustrate what you don't want to see when reloading.  These all show symptoms of case head separation.  The one on the left pulled apart enough to leak gas from firing.  The second from left has a small crack but no gas leakage.  The third from the left has a line aournd the case showing where the brass is thinnning from being pulled apart.  If it's reloaded and fired again it will crack like the first two.  The case on the right side is unusual in that the case is separating near the mid-point (see the line?).  It's the only one I've ever seen do that and I've been reloading ammo for close to forty years.

This is a case that split along the center.  It should never have been reloaded.  I picked it up from the ground where someone left it.  It was dinged up pretty bad and I wanted to see if firing it would iron out the dents.  It didn't as you can see.

This is the neck of the previous cartridge case.  This is what a split neck looks like.  In all of the above instances the cases have been reloaded too many times.

Here the primers have been flattened and the centers blown out because of high pressures.  If you have this happen with reloaded ammo immediately back off on the powder.  If you still have problems take the rifle to a gunsmith.  In this case I suspect I have a head space problem with the rifle rather than a reloading problem.  These were mild loads according to the manuals I used and they show absolutely no signs of high pressure in my other rifle.