Being a quadriplegic, gripping a rifle's forend and pulling it snugly against my cheek and shoulder has always been problematic. At first, I made use of any protuberance (such as a sling swivel) on the gun to wrap my contracted fingers around. This worked better than no grip at all.

It didn't take long to realize that a loop of nylon webbing threaded through the swivel would give me more to hook on to and allow me to pull the stock tighter against cheek and shoulder. This system has worked quite well for me over the years. It increased my accuracy level and gave me a more secure way of safely holding onto the rifle.

[More]

I bought my Anschutz 1418 back in 1984, if I remember correctly. It was during my period of sampling various .22 rifles in search of the rifle. That full-length Mannlicher stock just drips cool factor. I read once that they were designed to protect the barrel while negotiating the rough mountains encountered in chamois hunting. While chamois stalking up alpine landscapes is not likely in my future, I bought it because of its looks. It cost a bit over $400 and put quite a dent in my wallet...no regrets.

[More]

Some people like to do a lot of shooting. But most who do a lot of shooting cannot afford to buy pre-made bullets in the quantities that they use. The rest who do a lot of shooting are professional target shooters who are trying to get the best accuracy that they can get by making custom rounds.

So bullet components (gun powder, primers, bullets, and cartridges) are sold so people can put their own bullets together and customize their rounds (by adding more or less powder). But bullets don't just slide together, you have to have specialized tools.

You need dies that change the size of the cartridge (cartridges expand when shot), a die that takes the primer out (in Lee Reloading dies, the full casing re-sizer also has a de-primer), a die that seats the bullet, and (most people don't use this one) a crimp die that helps to keep the bullet from sliding. There are 2 different-sizing dies. One is a neck resizer and the other is full re-sizer. Both come in a 3 die set. A 4 die set has a crimp die in it. All of these are used in a press (more on this later).

Lee reloading dies come in every caliber that is made, except the 17HMR, which is a rim-fire round and are cheap enough that they don't ever get reloaded.

Lee dies cost an average of $30 per set + shipping. This takes into account everything from the very cheap .22 dies to the very expensive dies for rounds like the 50BMG-which can cost $130 + shipping. I recently bought a colt .45 die that cost me $40-which included shipping.

The Lee dies work very well. Every single die that I have used has done its job perfectly. I even measure the re-sizing with calipers!

The major downside is that startup costs are extremely high and you have to buy so many things to begin reloading. You have to buy-for use of all the dies-a press, a case trimmer, a powder scale, and a primer-seater.

Then, for each caliber, you have to buy the die set (Lee dies come with a shell holder for the press), a shell holder for the primer seater, a shell holder for the case trimmer, and the pilot for the case trimmer. The shell holders and the pilot have never cost more than $5 a piece.

[More]

My first .22 LR rifle was a Marlin/Glenfield bolt action repeater that I bought at a discount department store in Miami, Florida. I was in my late teens and had only fired my Dad's Savage Model 24 once prior at the age of 11. Heading to the range, I had visions of small groups at long distances...yeah, right. I was getting on the paper, but the cases were sticking and the stamped metal extractor was not extracting. This was after about 10 shots.

[More]