Neanderpundit

I have been dealing with Dennis Fossey at Precision Cartridge for some time now. Before that, I dealt with the guy he purchased the business from, Johnny Lamer.

Dennis spent years building his business. He has a whole slew of police departments he has been providing with ammo for years, and quite a few ranges around the area. He also does some of the more unusual loads for Graf like light 45-70 for those old trapdoors.

A lot of local businesses have eschewed his ammo because “my customers won’t shoot reloads, they want the real thing”. As if reloads weren’t the real thing. So over the years Dennis has gotten a lot of grief for being the “used” guy. A lot of people wouldn’t trust his ammo because it might somehow be lesser quality than the commercial stuff.

Well, I’ve shot thousands of rounds of it, with zero trouble. I have had, in as many thousand rounds, two cases which split- which, incidentally, chambered and fired well. Never had a misfire or a squib.

Now that ammo is getting tough to come by, the folks at local ranges are showing up. They still have the attitude that the reloaded ammo is somehow not as good as the factory ammo, so they show up with attitude. ‘I have a range. What’s your best price for x ammo?’ Dennis quotes them the full price. “What? No discount?”

Dennis is amused that the people who wouldn’t piss in his mouth if his teeth were on fire when times were good, are now begging to be serviced. He’s not shy about chasing fools out of his facility.

I show up at Dennis’ place with cash. I pay his asking price- which is WAY below the cost of commercial ammo. I know he sometimes don’t have the stuff in stock. So I pay and wait. Today I stopped by for a K of 9, a k of 45, and a k of 223. I’ll have it next week. I paid cash. Had I been able to call and give Dennis some warning, I’d have had it today.

I have worked hard all my life to make sure I had the right to carry. I contribue to pro 2a groups where I can, and I am very vocal about the basic human right I believe self defense to be.

Personally, though, i usually don’t carry. Here’s why.

I believe in a higher power. I believe when he wants me, he’s gonna get me. And when it’s not my time, he’s gonna see to it that I come out OK.

This has served me well. I’ve faced down guys with guns on multiple occasions and been shot at and even shot. I’m still here.

SOme of the people who accosted me are no longer here, though not through any action on my part. Some of them are in jail. At least one is living a pretty normal life now.

I have trusted the Creator and my wits to get me out of bad situations. I got into bad situations a lot because I hung out in rough places. I had my ass kicked a lot of times. A lot. Sometimes the Creator said to me “You got yourself into this. I’ll make sure you don’t outright die, but for the rest you’re on your own”. And I did. There were emergency room visits. There was time spent in hospital beds. There were court appearances.

I always considered the act of carrying the easy way out, and I never took the easy way. If it was tough, that was for me.

Times have changed, and I have hostages to my fortune. SO I do a couple things differently. I don’t go places where I’m highly likely to get shot,or be in other danger, and I certainly don’t take my family to those places. But as is proved over and over again, staying away from nominally dangerous places does not keep one from danger.

So I have become a lot more carry-conscious. I wear clothes that let me conceal. I keep my senses sharp and my eyes and ears peeled. I have the best situational awareness I can.

I have some help in this, because for many years I was voluntarily in situations where I might have to get myself out of trouble unarmed, and it helps to be one mental step ahead of the belligerent drunk at the end of the bar, the couple in the corner booth about to get in a fistfight over his/her infidelity, or the random asshole who wanted a piece of me just because he could. Sometimes I had to fight my way out, and as often as possible I absconded, discretion being the better part of valor. Not drinking has helped me immensely in this respect; a fat old man who is sober is a great match for a drunken ninja or a golden gloves boxer who is half in the bag.

Relying entirely on a weapon to protect you is bag-of-hammers dumb. You have to have all the skills to use the weapon, but you have to use the most powerful weapon of all, your brain. Your firearm is the tool you use when your brain fails you, or when the opponent(s)are immune to brains.