The biggest payoff of tidiness is that it’s rare that I can’t find something I’m looking for. Everything has its place. If I put things back where they belong, I don’t have to waste time hunting for them.
Nobody’s perfect, of course.
My Silverado’s bed-mounted toolbox is equivalent to a junk drawer or a woman’s oversized purse. I’ve managed to stuff it with random (albeit necessary or useful) shit over the last four years, but I haven’t taken time to organize it.
This morning it took me forever to find something I knew was in there. That was reason enough for me to drop what I was doing, tear the box apart and put it right.
I had a few empty toolbags hanging around, which I used to consolidate like items — recovery, jump-start, stranding, etc. I took out the trash. When I loaded my gear back into the toolbox, it was neat and orderly.
Much better.
The process uncovered a few things I’d forgotten I had. Among them was a well-stocked “go bag” — I’m quite sure that I hadn’t touched it since moving it over from my Tacoma when I bought this truck in June of 2022.
I went through that bag this afternoon, took inventory and swapped out what needed replacing. Naturally, I was curious to see what kind of knives I’d chosen to pack when I put it together.
The pocketknife I found was an 85mm Wenger Backpacker model. The fixed blade was my very first Mora.
This one goes back a ways. It’s a Frosts Morakniv Viking 640, which reportedly was a knife favored by none other than bushcraft guru Mors Kochanski. I know I paid less than ten bucks for it.
After using it for a couple of years, I modified the handle to better suit the way I used the knife. This is what it looked like originally:
The problem was the guard — it was far too big, always getting in my way. I shaved it down some, worked with it awhile, then came back and pared it a little more.
When I was satisfied, I sanded off the rough edges and finished with a torch.
A consequence of removing most of the guard was that the knife no longer “clicked” securely into its molded plastic sheath. I solved that with a piece of bicycle inner tube. It still works great.
That knife brought back fond memories. It was a pleasure handling it again. Tempted though I was to hold it out and mess with it for a week or two, I returned it to the go bag and stowed it in the truck.
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This morning seemed like as good a time as any to pattern snake shot in my revolvers. For what I expected to be just four shots, I didn’t bother running out to the east slope — I leaned my cardboard “targets” against a tree behind the shed and fired the rounds there.
Here, then, are the results.
It didn’t shock me that the longer-barreled Taurus produced a tighter spread with both loads at 12 feet. The CCI round surprised me a little, though, with how well (relatively) the pellets stayed together.
The larger impacts you see with both rounds, by the way, are from the CCI’s plastic capsule and the Doubletap’s copper cap.
The Doubletap’s wadcutter punched a neat, nearly perfect hole. (See today’s header image.)
I’m pleased with both cartridges. I came away from the exercise with information I didn’t have before. For now, I believe I’ll stick with the Doubletap, and I’ll likely be carrying the Taurus more often than not.
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Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable