Month: June 2020

In a surprise to exactly no one, my background check came back okay and I was able to finally pick up my new rifle today.

And there it is in all of its Wild West glory. Mine is a little special with the colorful case hardening, dark walnut woods, and a 22″ blued octagonal barrel, but otherwise this is pretty much the rifle that won the West. It’s a late 1880’s design firing late 1870’s ammunition, but made with modern metallurgy.

Now to order a few more bits and pieces (a cleaning kit, case, ear and eye protection) and some ammo, and then get her sighted in at the local range.

Anyone who tells you it’s too easy to buy a gun, especially right now, has never bought a gun… It’s a simple eight step process that can take a week or two to complete:

Step one: Find a weapon you would like to purchase and then locate somewhere to purchase it from.

Step two: It won’t be in stock because of zombies and riots, so you need to pay for the gun so that your local gun store will order it, and then wait 5-7 days for it to arrive.

Step three: As soon as they get one in stock, drive down to examine the weapon you purchased. 

Step four: Once satisfied, produce a government ID to prove who you are and where you live. In my case I also needed to provide the title for my Vespa because I’d moved and Colorado doesn’t re-print driver’s licenses or titles for address changes — you just write the new address on the back, which isn’t good enough. The Vespa was titled to the new address and as such is an acceptable government issued proof of said address.

Step five: Once you prove who you are to the store, you can then pay the $25 transfer fee for the store to transfer their weapon into your possession, which is required for the background check.

Step six: Fill out ATF Form 4473.

Step seven: Wait another day or two for the background check to come back.

Step eight: Return to the store and take delivery of your new gun.

I’m currently at step seven…

Things have definitely changed since I ran that pawn shop in Vail — we used to do all of the above in 15 minutes. But that was long before zombies and riots…

I’ve not directly owned a firearm for a really long time, in fact the last time was my Navy days back in the late 80’s. I carried a 1911 while on watch and had to routinely qualify on M14/M16 rifles.

I have a pretty solid belief on what guns are used for and when they are required… And living in an urban metropolis doesn’t really necessitate owning a firearm — I don’t need to hunt for dinner and a call to 911 tends to solve most problems, so I’ve not really thought about owning a gun for decades.

But the times, they are a changin’.

Zombie virus lockdowns are making people a bit crazy, violent riots where the police stand down and just let the crazies tear things apart have been going on for a week now, and now there’s talk of disbanding police forces entirely… And it’s only going to get worse as the election approaches… And this is prompting me to get more self-reliant.

I also own acreage down in southern Colorado that, someday, I plan to be living on — and down there the opportunity to fill a freezer full of deer is a lot higher, bear, coyote, and mountain cats can be a problem, and the police are a half an hour away at best.

So after some soul-searching and a rather lengthy bout of weapons research, Friday I ordered a new gun which will arrive at the gun-shop some time this week.

It’s a Henry lever-action rifle chambered for the 45-70 government round. It’s case hardened (the old-school oil-on-water looking hardening), blued 22″ octagonal barrel, semi-buckhorn sights, and dark walnut furniture — it’s a beautiful bit of machinery and something definitely worthy of hanging over the mantle, if I had one.

It also fits in well with the Wild West aesthetic down in southern Colorado.

The 45-70 is a rather hefty round, but it was designed back in the late 1800’s to be very utilitarian; one round for most purposes. It’ll stop any predator in North America from eating you, is good for hunting as it’s big and slow so there’s a lot of power but not a lot of meat loss, it’ll drop bad guys like no one’s business, and it’s fairly cheap.

With the riots and all, every local gun store is sold out of pretty much everything, which is fine as I wanted a custom rifle anyway and those need to be ordered. But it’s still weird to walk into Cabela’s and not see anything but skeet shotguns and .50cal hand canons in the display cases. As well as the background check for purchases taking days instead of minutes right now because of the volume…

And with the incredible uptick in gun ownership, the local ranges now have waiting lists to join up. This is because they just can’t hold all of the people wanting to get familiar with whatever they just bought.

Definitely interesting times.

With the threat of zombies and whatnot, a lot of the local grocers are generally out of good meat these days. Sure, you can still get generic 70/30 ground and frozen chicken – but steaks, when available, are like $20 each for pretty sketchy cuts.

Being a Colorado native I know a thing or two about beef… Colorado has types of cows and cuts of steak like Washington state has kinds of beans and types of coffee.  This means we have lots of local ranches, and some of them will sell directly to the public.

So, today a styrofoam cooler containing about 12 pounds of grass fed/finished red angus arrived on my doorstep from Christensen Ranch up in Sterling (north eastern Colorado).

Thats 2 NY Strip Steaks, 2 Flatiron Steaks, 2 Denver Steaks, 4 Western Grillers, 6 1/3lb Dry Aged Patties, and a pound of Single Source Ground Beef — and some Jacobsen flaked salt to boot!

Thursday I have another delivery coming from a different ranch located south of Parker in order to contrast and compare.

My current freezer is far too small for a quarter beef order (where you buy basically a quarter of a cow and specify what cuts you would like) which is about $700, but I have until April of next year to remedy that. And if things work out then I might start buying a year’s worth of beef at one go; maybe even go in on it with a few friends who happen to like superb steak for ~$7 a pound.