Scout popcorn was an online bust

Hundreds of folks looked at my post on popcorn but the boys got no orders from it.
Even selling door to door was very slow this year.
I hope our experience wasn't wide spread since scouts count on popcorn sales for activity money.

BTW if you did order from my link let me know....

Back to our irregularly unscheduled blogging...

Still clinging to my God and my guns,
Randy

Help Support Scouting

Scouts sell popcorn each year to help pay for their activities.
We have two sons in scouting and they are selling Trails End popcorn for the month of October.

The really cool thing about scouting popcorn is that even if you don't like popcorn there is an option to send some to troops overseas. That is a welcome gift to our soldiers.

So please help support our

Trails end popcorn helps boys be able to continue to grow up with values in a world that is increasingly hostile to our Christian way of life. Even if you don't buy from us consider purchasing some locally.

Thank You!

Still clinging to my God and my guns,
Randy

Death of the small town

Here is a guest post by The Impulsive Texan.
You can see the original post HERE

Still clinging to my God and my guns,
Randy

Death of the Small Town

I grew up in a small Texas town just on the outskirts of the middle of nowhere. Although I didn't realize it at the time, being isolated there was a blessing that is daily oh-so-obvious as an adult.

As a young boy, I thought my hometown would eventually die a slow, painful death because of its unwillingness to move forward. Now I look back and realize just how great a town it really was and how fortunate I was to begin life blanketed with its simple style.

I was aware of another world just past the county line because of the 6 o'clock news and the fuzzy and static-laden voices that verified its existence on my transistor radio. Those broadcasts and fleeting receptions helped my mind’s eye create the vision of what I thought life might be like in the big cities of Dallas and Fort Worth.

Riding bicycles unaccompanied by an adult from sunup until sundown all over the county was quite normal back then. My mother's only requirement as I pedaled out of the yard and pretended not to hear, was the stern and non-negotiable command of "you had better be in this house when that street light goes on." And that came out of her concern more for my getting into bed at a decent hour and not so much for my safety.

My friends and I would spend hours scouring ditches through the neck-high Johnson Grass beyond the shoulders of the road and behind restaurants and gas stations, searching for the glistening glass drink bottles that we would redeem at the local grocery store for a pocket full of shiny nickels. That was a dependable source of income for an eleven year-old boy not satisfied with the fifty cents allowance I received each Saturday morning.

Kick the can, riding bicycles without helmets and cooling off in a friends tank, never dwelling on the snapping turtles and snakes that swarmed just below the surface of the muddy water, were all rights of passage for young boys chasing down manhood along those dusty back roads.

With only a single movie available playing for the fifth Saturday night in a row at the local theater, endlessly cruising the mile-and-a-half, well-worn main drag was the weekends entertainment.

We were on a first-name basis with the local policemen who would creep slowly behind us in their cruisers while we parked on the square under cover of night. It was almost like an episode of Mayberry, RFD — Andy Griffith and Barney Fife tending their civic duties by ensuring the children of local residents weren’t involved in something that would get them hurt or in trouble.

But now the hometown I once knew has now become unrecognizable to me and, ironically, it’s from the very thing I once thought would be its salvation from a plain, ordinary existence. I don’t know how to explain the different “feel” it now has. No longer does the naïveté hang on the breeze like the sheets on mama’s clothesline. It’s no longer a refuge or a place where I can run and hide when I get disenchanted by the world and all of its problems.

Now every country in this world is a neighbor. The small town is now a faded memory from another time just like ice-picks, typewriters or those bottles I spent the better part of my youth searching for. Even remote corners of this fragment of dust we call Earth are just a keyboard or mouse-click away. I'm not so sure that I like that or if I will ever be able to embrace it. So call me old fashioned and I'll just say, thank you.

I find myself, like many other people around this globe, mired in the age of Facebook, texting, high speed Internet, and cable television and firmly planted in the electronic age.

But everything good and necessary comes with a price. Technology can be a good thing and the majority of our worldly "neighbors" would say it is necessary, but the by-product of technology has become a double-edged sword.

On the one edge the ability to do things bigger, faster and better has evolved at an incredible pace, freeing up even more time to cram something else into our time-starved lives. On the other edge, the innocence of the small town has been shattered and compromised because now, the entire world and all of its glories and its darkness is at the fingertips of unsuspecting youth from Hico to Hiroshima. Those outside activities I spent a childhood enjoying have now disappeared, long-gone with the small town. Now if it isn’t gigged, wi-fied, joy-sticked or hi-speed, it’s not an activity or an interest for kids.

Yes, the little map dot where I grew up has fully embraced the technological age, too. I don't even recognize it during the visits I take there now. The buildings are the same but just a bit more rundown than I remember and the school I attended is still home to the Fighting Indians and the kids still drive up and down the main drag, only now with a curfew. There seems to be a well-defined appetite for all things worldly, present and around every corner. Cell phone towers seem oddly out of place in once productive peanut fields that are now, empty, overgrown pastures.

Gang signs deface historic buildings and landmarks, young boys walk around with their “pants on the ground" and booming car stereos shatter the silence of once peaceful mornings. Like a favorite uncle I thought would never die, the town I came to love has succumbed to worldly influence.

Those timeless, enduring words of Thomas Wolfe — You Can't Go Home Again —make more sense to me now than they ever have.

But I often take time out of what has become a busy life and close my eyes. I pull an image from a dusty summer day in the past and pause to reflect on the simple tranquility of that place I once knew. Though faded through years and age, the images I recall helps me remember that deep in the heart of Texas, miles away from anywhere, but just a click away from everywhere, is that little place I once knew as home.

The Impulsive Texan

guest posts

I am in search of guest posts.

I would really like to be more consistent in my posting, and I believe a couple guest posts now and then would be just the ticket.

I know other places offer contests to get you to send in articles but I really don't have anything to offer at this time.

So if you would like to see your name and info here just drop me an email
longhunter64@yahoo.com

please don't include anything against Christian beliefs.

Still clinging to my God and my guns,
Randy

Hey you dang woodchucks!

Quit chuckin' my wood!

We have woodchucks (ground hogs) around here.
The farmer who rents our field planted soybeans this year and the buggers like to eat bean when they are small and taste good.

I usually get to shoot three or four every year as I see them out in the bean field.

This year I shot five and was still seeing them! Plus they were getting really skittish. The beans have been eaten in a large semi-circle around my farm barn about 20 yards deep!

After shooting five I figured I had one left. I shot at him twice and missed (those are the only two misses this year) so he is being real spooky to get a shot at.

So I decided to set the live trap out and see if I could round up this last straggler. So what to use for bait??
I decided to try celery with a little peanut butter. Next morning I had a coon. Well great at least he wouldn't be after the chickens.
So I shot him and dumped him and reset the trap without bait. Next morning another coon, great again.

Next morning the trap was rolled over like a coon was on top and it tipped. So I took the trap and mashed down some tall weeds and stuck it there with the weeds on each side. It looks like a tunnel now running into the weeds.

I caught three more ground hogs since I have done that a little over a week ago.

So the score is Randy 8 - ground hogs ?

We'll just have to see how many more there actually are out there.

I am becoming a big believer in live traps. If I were fur trapping this one would of paid for itself in coon pelts quickly. I bought it a couple years ago when we had meat chickens out in a chicken tractor and the coons were getting them. It really does a number on the coons.

Still clinging to my God and my guns,
Randy

How to make balm of Gilead salve

If you ever wondered how to make black salve also call balm of Gilead.

I ran across this post from "freedom of the hills" that tells how to make it.

You can view it here; Balm of Gilead Salve

This is a great skill to have and a handy salve to keep on hand.

Still clinging to my God and my guns,
Randy

Knee High by the Fourth of July...

So goes the old saying to tell if you will get a decent yield of corn.

I was surprised with our wet spring the local farmers seemed to have gotten to that benchmark.
I even read that with all the advancements in technology they expect to get a good average year.

For me ... not so well,
My hybrid sweetcorn is about knee high but my saved Indian corn is lagging behind.
Everything was just too wet to plant on time, and then we were out of state for a funeral the first week it was dry enough to plant. I'll let you know this fall how the corn ends up.

Thinking of getting some buckwheat to put in the rest of my tinkering area.'

Still clinging to my God and my guns,
Randy

Be careful how you store your water.

We learned an important lesson yesterday about water storage.
We had bought a couple of those milk jugs of drinking water at the grocery and had put them in the closet.

The Mrs. had been smelling mold for a few weeks but couldn't figure out where it was coming from.

Well it seems those jugs start biodegrading and one of them leaked all over and soaked some cardboard containers and turned to mold.

Seems it was quite a mess (she had most of it cleaned before I got home(great wife I know)).

Never trust those flimsy milk carton type jugs for long term storage.

Still clinging to my God and my guns,
Randy

I wish we'd all been ready

A powerful message and one of my favorite songs







Still clinging to my God and my guns,
Randy

The Manhattan Declaration

Christian or not if you value your freedom this is a document that you will want to read.

It is a statement by Christians but it invites all those who are moral to read and sign it.

I won't urge you to sign but I do urge you to read it. Then if you feel compelled to sign that is good.

One of the last lines is the most powerful of all to me...

"We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar's. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God's. "

I have cut and pasted a couple paragraphs here and there so you can get an idea of what is said.

We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right—and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation—to speak and act in defense of these truths. We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence. It is our duty to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in its fullness, both in season and out of season. May God help us not to fail in that duty.


Christians confess that God alone is Lord of the conscience. Immunity from religious coercion is the cornerstone of an unconstrained conscience. No one should be compelled to embrace any religion against his will, nor should persons of faith be forbidden to worship God according to the dictates of conscience or to express freely and publicly their deeply held religious convictions. What is true for individuals applies to religious communities as well.


It is ironic that those who today assert a right to kill the unborn, aged and disabled and also a right to engage in immoral sexual practices, and even a right to have relationships integrated around these practices be recognized and blessed by law—such persons claiming these "rights" are very often in the vanguard of those who would trample upon the freedom of others to express their religious and moral commitments to the sanctity of life and to the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife.


Because we honor justice and the common good, we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family. We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar's. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God's.

It really is a powerful statement and should be shared with all people who value their freedom.

Once again please read the statement

Then check out the home page

Still clinging to my God and my guns,
Randy

1899 home

Yes I started another blog.

1899 home

Like I have nothing better to do, plus I don't write content here like I should.
But anyway....

I came across my great-great grandmothers cookbook in this old house.
It was published in 1894 and is full of wisdom for the home (which is common in those old cookbooks).

Plus there are several newspaper clippings and hand written recipes to go along with the book.
Being the bibliophile that I am I also have a couple other books from the same era that have wisdom of the age to share.

So... I find all that info just too cool to not pass on.


Still clinging to my God and my guns,
Randy

Ayn Rand...Atlas Shrugged... Not a Christian value

I have seen reference to Atlas Shrugged my whole time on the net as a prepper. So many times that I finally checked it out of the library and started reading it.
I didn't get very far.
Maybe my mistake was reading the for word where Ms. Rand lays out her militant anti Christian beliefs.
That kind of ruined the rest of the book for me.

Time .com has a great article by Amy Sullivan, called

"An Atheist Icon? Social Conservatives Worried About GOP Ayn Rand Resurgence"

In this article she tells us about what our GOP leaders think of this prominent atheist.
"

• - Paul Ryan says Ayn Rand is the reason he entered politics and he requires all staff and interns to read her books. Says Ryan: "Ayn Rand more than anyone else did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism."
• - Clarence Thomas requires his law clerks to watch The Fountainhead, and has said "I tend really to be partial to Ayn Rand."
• - Sen. Ron Johnson, Ryan's GOP colleague from Wisconsin, calls Atlas Shrugged his "foundational book."
• - Rush Limbaugh calls Ayn Rand "the brilliant writer and novelist."
• - Fox News repeatedly promoted the recently released movie version of Atlas Shrugged, airing the trailer on several shows and interviewing cast members.

"
Chuck Colson has a little to say also. Here is his two minute warning video warning.
Then here is his Break Point commentary. Called "Shrug it off"

We have to be diligent to study what our leaders are actually saying when they come to power.
We can't get caught up in backing a party candidate blindly just because he or she has declared themselves red or blue.

Please read the links (they are short)

Still clinging to my God and my guns,
Randy

A wet spring

SO much rain...

One field by our lane has been planted and the farmers in the area are scrambling around between thunderstorms trying to get a crop in.

Our garden and field are both way too wet to work yet. I did a couple passes with the till a couple weeks ago but had to stop because it was too wet then. It has rained all but a couple widely spaced days since. The till broke something when I was doing a run on Saturday. It is stuck in gear and the tines spin freely without power.

I have been able to mow part of the yard but some of it is closing in on a foot tall. I bagged alot of it and started mulching the garden. Maybe we will have to try Ruth Stouts "no work garden" method this year. If we can't get it tilled I will just mulch the whole thing and pull back the mulch to plant.

Haven't figured out what to do about the field garden yet. If it doesn't dry out soon we may just have to forget it.

Still clinging to my God and my guns,
Randy

New Layout

Welcome to my new (and much more versatile) layout.
I hope you like it...

Been examining new ways to bring in traffic and build good content so expect a few new things in the weeks to come.

If you have a blog I would be willing to exchange guest posts!!!

It has been a wet wet wet spring and we still haven't gotten the garden tilled.
Today was the first day I could mow this spring, but there is still lots of water standing so I only did a little. (I have about 3 acres to mow)
It is going to be a bummer this summer with gas at $4.15 here right now.

All the fruit seems to have made over the winter except for maybe one blueberry bush. (they hate it here)
Still no bees for the top bar hive I built 2 years ago.

We bought a Liberty and a freedom apple last year so that we could get fruit without spraying and they made it as well.

Still clinging to my God and my guns,
Randy

How to make and use sun rendered fish oil for the trapline.

How to make sun rendered fish oil

Sun rendered fish oil usually called just plain “fish oil” is one of the simplest and easy to make trapping lures there is. All you need to make it is a clean jar with a lid and fish.

- Making the fish oil

Take your jar and make sure it is clean. Get the biggest jar you can find since you want to get as much fish oil as you can from your effort. Cut the fish up into chunks to fit into the jar. If they fit without cutting that is fine, you don’t really need to cut them up. Fill the jar about ¾ full.

Take the lid and poke a few small holes in the top to let out the gasses that will form while the fish is rotting down. Put a layer of thin cloth over the top of the jar and screw the lid down over it. (The cloth keeps out the flies) Then place the jar in full sun and let it set. You will want to protect it from animals because they will want to get into the rotting fish.

After several weeks the fish should have turned to liquid. Floating on top should be a layer of oil. The liquid beneath it is also sold as “fish oil” by many and “fish juice” by some. You can use either or both for attracting animals to your sets.

- Using the fish oil

Now that you have your fish oil what do you do with it?

Fish oil is very attractive to most animals, even those who usually don’t eat meat.

It can be combines with many different ingredients to increase its attractiveness to a specific animal, as in adding skunk essence to make it into a call lure for canines.

Fish oil is something every trapper should make and use.

Companion planting guides

LINK Link2

I found these while stumbling around stumble upon...
BTW like me on Stumble if you like this sight

Still clinging to my God and my guns,
Randy

Engaging your World (Walking your walk)

As a Christian dare I say survivalist it seems sometimes as if by preparing for an uncertain future we are at the same time disengaging ourselves from the world around us. Many times I would like nothing better than to build a 30' wall around our property and sit contentedly behind it waiting for whatever the world seeks to push over the top of it.

But as bible believing Christians we are to be in the world but not of the world. I need reminded of this almost daily, and so I am very grateful to Chuck Colson and Breakpoint . I listen to Chuck just about every morning on the radio on my way to work.

Chuck is all about living our lives while embracing our Christian worldview. So what is a "Christian Worldview"?

It is how we SHOULD view the world and interact with, it in light of our faith.

Many times professing Christians are really no different that secular Humanists when it comes to everyday issues. Many Christians leave their "faith" at the church door when they walk out on Sunday. It's so easy to fall into old comfortable habits. I'm not talking about sin here, I am talking about the thought process we use when we think about things in general.

From the evening news to the sports or sitcoms we watch we think about the entertainment value, but what about the God value? How did that newscast effect the kingdom of God? Did that sitcom just make an off color joke about God and we thought it was funny? How about misinformation? Did we fall into the trap of "well I can't do anything about it"?

Faith is THE foundation on which we SHOULD build our lives. We say we believe what the bible teaches but do we really live that way?

Not that we can do anything at all about lots of things but everything we see and I mean everything should be evaluated in light of our faith and how it affects our walk and our witness.

Back to Chuck...
He sponsors a program called the" Centurions".
Read his commentary from a couple day ago.

Centurions are believers trains to specifically engage their world with a Christian world view.
If we all could learn to recognize our world view, and align it closer to Christs, we would have an untold impact on the world we live in.

Still clinging to my God and my guns,
Randy

How to create your own heirloom vegetables

How to create your own heirloom vegetables

Growing your own food is a big part of your family’s security. Producing your own food can keep the proverbial wolf away from the door.

One thing you should consider is the security of the seeds you buy. I’m sure you have heard by now about “terminator genes” that some companies are trying to put into the food supply. These genes make it so any plants grown from them are sterile and won’t produce viable seeds. The only way to be sure of what you are getting is to produce it yourself.

Heirlooms are very important because they are adapted to a specific area and type of management system. If you develop your own you will have a plant that grows well in your area and grows well how you plan on growing it. A cool thing about them is they can be adapted for how you manage your garden also.(low input, raised bed, container, heavy mulch, etc.)

My corn has been selected for low input organic growth. I have also had to add resistance to cucumber beetles that eat the silk while the plant is putting on ears. When I started out I got very little corn because of the “harsh” way I grow it. I have tried a few times to grow “Bloody Butcher” corn, but it has always failed because the cucumber beetles keep it from pollinating almost completely by eating the silk. I usually end up 10 or so kernels on an ear. The corn I started with was Mandan Bride. The first year it put out two foot plants with small 6 inch ears. This last year (10 years later) I had 6-12 foot plants with 10-12 inch ears. I still get nubbins because of my limited addition of fertilizer (chicken manure, wood ashes, compost and homemade liquid fertilizer).

So how do we go about making our own heirlooms?

-Save your seed

First you need to learn about saving your seeds. This year when you grow your garden, save some seed for the next year. Even if you plant hybrids you can save that seed and plant some of it next year (don’t use it for your whole planting because you might not get anything edible the first couple years). You will get plants that revert back to what they were before they were hybridized, but you will then have plants you can select and improve upon. Of course the best way is to start with an heirloom of some sort to begin with.

-Look for differences in your plants

During the growing season watch your plants closely. Did some of them grow faster than others? Do some put out bigger or tastier fruit? Did the bugs leave one plant unharmed? Is there a color difference? Does one put out fruit much later than the others? One or all of these things can be selected for. Or you can combine traits you want.

Last summer we grew a Burgundy Okra.(it was very good) I put in six or seven plants in a row. Out of that row I had two green okras from the same seed with the rest burgundy like they were supposed to be. Of the two green ones one the bugs just destroyed, I mean they were all over it, but the others were not touched. So I save two kinds of seed for the okra, “burgundy okra” and “green okra”. I tossed the buggy one into the compost pile when harvest was done. You might ask why I didn’t pull it earlier; I used it for a bug trap. The bugs all went there and left my other stuff alone.

-Plant for improvement and selection

The example I am going to use is my corn but it can be used for any improvement in your garden. If this is your first year select your best ears (fruits) according to the traits you want to pass on. I use three criteria for my corn.

-full ear- This means that the bugs didn’t get any silk when the kernels were forming so they didn’t like it and avoided it for some reason, pass that trait on always.

-size- Bigger is better in this game unless you are trying to create a specialty crop of baby sized veggies. On corn you need to look at length of the ear as well as how dense the kernels pack together.

-color- Since my corn is Indian corn I select for color also, but it is my third criteria and I will plant ears that are mostly yellow if they are large and dense. You should sort your veggies in the same way. Be sure and keep the seeds separate. How I plant my corn is to take one ear of corn and start planting hills in a strait row. Only kernels from that ear go into any hill in that row. After I get that row planted I pick up my next ear and repeat the process of one ear per row until you have your plot or field planted. As the plot grows pay attention to the things I mentioned before. Watch to see which rows get a head start in germination, which rows grow fastest are easiest to weed or whatever you decide is important. Then repeat the process over from the beginning next year.

The first picture is looking West at my row of hills. The next picture is looking South, and this picture is looking diagonally SouthEast. If you look close you can see the high wheel cultivator at the end of the row. These types of plantings can be cultivated in three directions just as the pictures were taken.

Other fruits and veggies will not cross pollinate as well as corn but keeping them in the rows will make keeping track of what you are trying to accomplish so much easier. So a couple years down the road you have a tomato that no one else has or you have bell peppers the size of footballs or just corn that grows without much fertilizer and it is a brand new heirloom that you have created.

Still clinging to my God and my guns,

Randy

Went to Lehmans

We went to Lehmans last weekend.
This is an annual spring event for us, but this year was different.

They had a flood a few weeks ago and had all the flood damaged merchandise marked 50% off.
They had no flood insurance so they are needing to make even more sales to make up for all the damage. they have a pretty large area devoted to flood damaged stuff. But still at 50% off some of it is pricey.

We had a get together at our place last year for some folks I know from online. It has become an annual event also...4 years now. One of the guys that comes is from over in that area and told us about their regular markdown area. (we had never found it before) It is in the upstairs portion of the toy department. (where the train runs around)

Found lots of good stuff up there, if you make it to Lehmans be sure and hit the upstairs.

While I was picking up a few more spiles for next years maple syrup I got into a nice conversation with a couple from the Cleveland area. They ended up getting a few also so they could tap their yard trees next year.

I also spied the old guy from all the cardboard cutouts with the white beard and hair. I was so tempted to walk up to him and shake him and say "just trying to see if you're the real one" LOL

Still clinging to my God and my guns,
Randy

my 2 tablespoons of maple syrup

Boiled down about 1/2 gallon of sap Thursday night. Ended up with a small amount of syrup.Boy is it good!!
I think I got ripped off a couple years ago when I traded some writing for some "real homemade Vermont maple syrup".
It was sweet and tasted good but was very light in color and had almost no maple flavor. Could of been corn syrup for all I know.
Mine is nice and brown and has a strong maple taste. I didn't boil it long enough to get real thick because it is so sweet.
I'm going to invest in some "sugaring" equipment before next year. I have a very large cast Iron pot they used for butchering that should double for boiling down sap, since we are poor and can't afford a new or used pan.

Still clinging to my God and my guns,
Randy

Maple Syrup

I put in two syrup taps today. They are in two small maples that are growing in the drip line of my shop. I have a huge sugar ample in the yard but have tried three years now to get sap but nothing comes out no matter where I drill.
The little ones are dripping well into the gallon jugs and I will update on what we get.
I was going to walk down to the woods and put some taps in but My cordless drill batteries are on their last legs and I don't have the correct bit for my brace.

Still clinging to my God and my guns,
Randy

Product review - Cobra big bore derringer

The Cobra “Big Bore” derringer is designed to provide personal protection in a package that is affordable, is easily concealed and has ample stopping power.



This derringer is called “Big Bore” for a reason. Available in five calibers from .22 mag. up to the 38 special it packs more punch than standard small caliber derringers. This example is the .38 special.



It is quite a hand full shooting regular PMC 132 grn FMJ. THIS GUN IS NOT RATED FOR +P AMMO


Derringers are designed to be shot at close range, and with an eleven-pound trigger pull accuracy beyond a few feet is iffy at best, unsupported with this hard trigger pull I was lucky to hit the backstop. These six shots were shot at six feet from a solid rest. The front sight was placed at the bottom of the green square. As you can see it was a six inch spread, with the two barrels grouping differently.





The only mechanical problems has been the screw on the locking lever loosening up. It needs a shot of loc-tight.

A couple positives...

-Affordable
Coming in under $150 the “Big Bore” is affordable by most people on a budget. According to Cobra’s website you can get options of a standard black powder coat or several custom finishes. You can also get four different grip colors.

-Easily Concealed
The “Big Bore” is a small package that weighs in at 14oz. empty. At just over four and one-half inches it can be carried all day without even noticing you have it with you unless you need it.

Overall it does what it is supposed to do. Namely deliver two .38 special rounds at point blank range.