The Cardinals are still hanging around, the Rams pre-season starts-up and the beginning of the EPL!
Along with all the summer garden flowers, the suprise lillies are in full bloom, the asters and mums are getting ready.
...and those catalogs - perfect on a hot summer day's inside.
Corn is moving towards harvest, goldenrod weeks away and doves on the telephone wires.
This is the month I forget about .020" thin barrels and side-clips on lite gameguns.
Altho' still looking for that gun, that will fill-out my fall line-up.
SO!
Not interested in bunk from workbench or gunroom - the many seasons are weeks away.

August is a good month?
I have just been informed that my Grouse shooting on my regular moor will not happen this year due to the poor weather and a lack of birds.That is bad news for Partridges.

Can't speak for red grouse, but, ruffed grouse counts are up 40% over last year, and Minnesota continues to suffer a horrific infestation of those Chinese immigrants known locally as ring necked pheasants. They have been running around in my suburban yard, for crying out loud. Woodcock are in decline, so I've avoided shooting any the last several seasons, and will continue to do same. Two out of three 'ain't bad, you know. My English setter, my Tobin 16, and the pair of 12 and 20 gauge Darnes have resigned ourselves to a busy, and productive autumn of insuring only the best survive.
A little rain would be nice, and, I'll be forced to drive on interstate 94 to avoid the recently collapsed 35W bridge in Minneapolis, but, hey, things could be worse-I could be forced into using steel shot statewide (a likely scenario, in the globally warmed future, I figure someone will suggest lead shot is the real culprit any day now) and a lowly pump. These are the good old days.

Let the good times roll.
Best,
Ted

Salopian: no Glorious 12th, then? I don't recall much in the way of grouse moors in Shropshire - where do you shoot?

Jack,
Yes we have grouse moors in Shropshire, The Stiperstones and the Long Mynd + many others.Twenty miles away we have Cannock Chase where the record bag of Blackgame was shot.Shropshire the Hidden County, where Men are Men and Sheep are frightened.

An honest man-careful where you set your lamp down over there...
Best,
Ted

We are in the end of days due to lead shot!
Timing is everything, durning the pre-ban days the duck numbers, and duck hunters were at low ebb...perfect timing to pass a bill on those poor old farm boys.
Hard steel in old rusty guns do not mix!

Salopian 'Hidden County' sounds allot like Missouri.

h0meless0ne, "Hidden Country," is good!
You can do as you please - when you please and how you please.
No rules, just right ol'boy!
Say, how's those replacement tubes swingin'?

Feels like the real thing....you should try some on your cowboy'd Beesley.

Count on this: members of this board will not be stopped by the price of lead. Nor of bismuth or TM.

The Sky is falling...but it never falls.

Original barrels ol'h0meless0ne, are the life blood of the gun.
Most else are just trappings!
Nothing says nothing, like non-original barrels!

Count on this King!
There are those who spend many many thousands on guns here, so the cost of non-toxic shot, no matter what is no big deal at all.
...but not every duck hunter hangs here, with that wad of cash in his wallet.
What has kept America strong, is the most common of us!
Not the DU decals on a SUV tottin' Dhe kinda guy.

Nothing says nothing like a cOwboy'd Beesley....

Poor ol'j0e, you need to freshen-up your act!
Seems like years ago with you.

Kingbrown....I think the August heat has effected his mind.

Late heats good, it's the summer's swan-song.
The heat moves the corn to harvest, and puts the red in apples.
Its a good day to stay in and check for moth holes in your tweeds.

august is 98 degrees where I am at...not that good!

August is a great month ....for me!!! Just opened my 28 gauge Ruger Red Label, went out to practice with it and found that this little beauty patterns nicely!!!! Shoot steel, Kent's TM, Hevishot you name it it will shot it AND its American made!!! I whole heartedly agree August is a good month!
All the best

August is a good time te be tuning up for fall...how many rounds have you fired Lowell ?

Exactly JOe, those barrels get SMOKIN hot and you may suffer second degree burns on your shoulders and arms... but that's okay, that's what's practicing is all about.. "endure the pain"!!!
All the best

Lowell, I've been living with you here long enough to know that the wonderful world you inhabit vicariously or otherwise could not be changed if the price of lead became that of gold.

You want to see hOt...shoot some Black Powder...I shot a couple of rounds of skeet last week with Black....the barrels were so hot a guy lit his cigarette of the side the barrel.

Early Saturday morning I shot 25 sporting clays...a round of skeet....25 wobble trap it wasn't too bad.
Later in the morning I shot two rounds of trap with another SxS hammer gun and you could've cook an egg on the barrels.

King last I checked the price of lead doesn't effect a key board.

I took inventory of my ammo. Almost everything is in good supply including Pepto and TM, but I'm down to 15 'Original Brenneke' cartucce cal. 12br/67mm.

Sheer alchemy King - sheer alchemy!

I'm off on the glorious 13th (12th is a Sunday)to walk-up grouse in Scotland. Hope there will be some grouse to walk up.

Also hope I don't expire in the heather like old Lord Ripon from over exhertion! I'm not used to walking up hills in 30 degrees of sunshine.

Our partridges are excellent and pheasants even better. We have had a good rearing season and looking forward to seeing the birds embarrass the guns come late September.

August is the month for re-daubing the 5-gal. drywall buckets with camo paint for use in the dove fields and making sure the hardware on the rail skiffs is solid and well-anchored. In a fit of efficiency I fled the 90+ degree heat outside over the weekend and attacked my gunroom for the Phase I cleanup. Wound up throwing hundreds of cardboard shell boxes away I know I'll never use because the only thing I reload any more is 28 ga. With the price of 12- and 20-ga. promotional ammo at the end-of-summer clearance/pre-dove season sales approaching less than $2.50 a box it makes no sense whatever to reload these gauges any more. So far as global bans on lead shot I think it ain't gonna happen - as long as Rem, Win, Wally World, Bass Pro, Cabelas and the other mega-makers can offer this fodder at those prices, they know the locals will be lined up 20-deep when the doors open. Its the same old shell game (pun intended) as with the global oil market - squeeze us at the pump till they realize we just don't give a damn and will keep driving anywhere we want. At a small gunshop in DE over the weekend I looked out over at least a 7-mile backup of traffic approaching the DE Memorial Bridge. The wife remarked that the SUV's and their ilk outnumbered the economy passenger cars over 2 to 1. Damn the commodity market; we will drive and shoot till we drop. KBM

The reoccuring nightmare of running out of ammo has ceased for a while. I bought out a sporting clays shooter that called it quits. 25 cases along with my current stockpile should last a few weeks.Plenty of low pressure loaded,I've put the reloader up. Seven miles to the club doesn't take too much gas.Hot summer nights & clays under the lights....oh yeah!