Hello from KY!

[koger]

Hello all, new guy on the forum. I recently stepped into the 6.5 Grendel world and in looking around here a few minutes, I found several things that I had questions on. I am a 45+ year reloader, with 36+ years of gunsmithing under my belt. I dont do much anymore, except for friends and relatives, due to health issues. I am a long time lover of anything 6.5, and have built over 100 6.5 Swedes. I have been shooting the same one, since 1985, that I built myself, on a unissued Model 96. It still shoots under half MOA out to 400yds which is as far as I have shot it on paper recently. Most of the rifles I have built, have been on Mausers and Savage actions, a few rolling blocks, and a handful of custom trad muzzle loaders. My main gunsmithing besides building rifles, was accurizing bolt rifles, by bedding and floating the barrels, going thru the triggers and crowning the barrels. I also did a lot of action jobs on Revolvers. I also love traditional ML rifles, as well as modern inline also. I shot competitively for many years with a traditional Muzzle loader on a local, state and National level, medaling 31 times in NMLRA matches, and winning our KY Bluegrass games 2x and a 2nd 1 time. I also have a deep love for single shot centerfire rifles, and that is what I shoot most every day. I have several in8x58R, .38/55, 45/70, 50/70, 12.17x44R including rolling blocks, trapdoors and Hi walls. I am retired, early retirement, due to having some serious health issues from a hip replacement, infection 3x and having 4 hip replacements on the same hip, in 16 months. In the middle of all this, I had 3 strokes in one day, in a 6 hour timespan, from prolonged infection. The strokes left me with my right leg mostly paralyzed, my right hand comes and goes, but is usable most of the time. I suffer from episodes of slurred speech an chronic fatigue, but I thank God daily to be in as good a shape as I am. The docs say I am a walking miracle, to even be able to think/talk/walk, much less have any cognitive skills left. I am blessed to have retained all the info on guns and working on them, that I knew before the stroke, with the only issue being my short term memory sucks. I love to hunt, anything that in season, and love deer hunting with my wife of 39 years. She usually gets 2 a year, and is a very good shot, with 35 deer to her credit. I love to bowhunt, ML and rifle deer hunt. I have been fortunate to bear hunt the northern woods of Maine and take a nice bear, and elk hunted the rocky mountains and ended up with 6x6 bull. I have taken a few Mule deer, all with a ML. I managed to take all 4 deer allowed in my zone here in KY last year, 2 with bow, one with a ML and one in rifle season using an original Trapdoor Springfield circa 1884 with slug I cast and loaded, one shot at 70yds, DRT. Well that is me in a nutshell, glad to be here.

[Old Bob]

koger... Welcome to the Grendel Forum! Did you ever make it out to any of the NMLRA Western National Rendezvous back in the 1980s? We might have run into each other & didn't know it. The last one I went to was in 1986. Don't know if the NMLRA still has a western rendezvous.

[FLshooter]

[VASCAR2]

[A5BLASTER]

Welcome to the horde sir.

[just_john]

Welcome to the clan, koger, ( from one old guy to another ), from the great nation of Texas! It would appear that we will be asking you for info more than you will be asking us! Anyone who has done such as you describe in this realm has also done a lot to perpetuate the interest in all things that relate to the 2nd Amendment - so, thank you for your service to the Constitution!

[koger]

Thanks for the welcome guys. Vascar, I reside in south central KY, Wayne Co. We have lake cumberland, which is a huge tourist draw, and we have several Historic sites, The Millsprings mill is one of them, and the civil war battlefield which it is a part of. I live about 45 minutes away from Pall Mall TN, home of the worl war 1 Hero, Alvin York. They have a across the log, traditional ML shoot there every spring, limited to 230 shooters. This is the toughest ML shoot I have ever been to. Ole Bob, they still have the western shoots, but I have never made it out there.

[koger]

Thanks for the welcome guys. Vascar, I reside in south central KY, Wayne Co. We have lake cumberland, which is a huge tourist draw, and we have several Historic sites, The Millsprings mill is one of them, and the civil war battlefield which it is a part of. I live about 45 minutes away from Pall Mall TN, home of the worl war 1 Hero, Alvin York. They have a across the log, traditional ML shoot there every spring, limited to 230 shooters. This is the toughest ML shoot I have ever been to.

[Medic73]

[VASCAR2]

Thanks for the welcome guys. Vascar, I reside in south central KY, Wayne Co. We have lake cumberland, which is a huge tourist draw, and we have several Historic sites, The Millsprings mill is one of them, and the civil war battlefield which it is a part of. I live about 45 minutes away from Pall Mall TN, home of the worl war 1 Hero, Alvin York. They have a across the log, traditional ML shoot there every spring, limited to 230 shooters. This is the toughest ML shoot I have ever been to. Ole Bob, they still have the western shoots, but I have never made it out there.

[Bottomdweller]

Welcome from another nubie! I too love single shots although I don't hunt with them anymore. I've owned several #1's, I have that same trap door, and a 50 alaskan built by SSK. When I grew up in Idaho I hunted just about everything with a .220 swift in a #1. Then I had a 7 STW in a #1. I quit using them here in Alaska because I got tiered of walking around with an empty chamber. The brush here always grabs that lever and ejects the shell. Once when black bear bluffed charged me! Glad it was a bluff.

[GregP42]

Koger,

Welcome from another Ky resident. I am in central Ky just outside of Lexington.

Greg

[CWOZ]

Welcome from Adair.

[koger]

Glad to see a lot of KY boys on here.

[Pootyng]

Koger welcome from Bardstown.