Texas Marksmen

The process of restoring a Korean war era M1 Garand continues. There are no updated progress photographs but here are some learning points: 1) Historically, the U.S. government treated M1 Garand stocks with boiled linseed oil and then with tung oil. There is a new product known as Odie's Oil which I used for treating the restored walnut after staining it. It provides a beautiful finish and is a project to be seriously considered by other persons with an interest in restoring old firearms. Once my 97 Winchester is back from examination by the gunsmith, I intend to restore that stock and utilize the Odie's oil finish on that product. It's food safe and great for a variety of woodworking projects. 2) Stainable wood fillers are not. There are still some gouges on the stock that are in need of repair once I find a suitable product. I will likely need to reapply the odies oil finish to the stock after I finish that portion of the restoration, but the front and rear handguards ...

One of the things I love about what I do is when I get to take people to harvest their first whitetail deer or their first ducks. It's a lot of fun because I know that I am helping to build a new generation of 2nd Amendment advocates and hunters. This weekend I had a hunter who had never shot a deer before and I was set to take him out for one. This was a "meat hunt" and, per the property owners, only doe and spike bucks were in play (but hey, he wasn't charging us). My hunter texted me that his flight had been delayed due to a fire at DFW airport and the estimate time of arrival kept getting pushed back until he decided he would just drive himself to the hunt. We woke up in the cabin at about 5:45 and he had not arrived yet. We figured that he was too tired to drive and were about to head to the field when he pulled into the ranch. We outfitted him as best we could in cold weather gear, armed him with my Seekins Precision PH2 in 300 Winchester Magnum (he wanted to le...