Skillz

Took a day to decompress and boy did I need it.  Since tomorrow is Tax Prep day.  Today I went to the Fin Feather & Fur and picked up some ammo to practice with this weekend.   Then I had an omelette at iHop for breakfast.  Now I am baking bread.  Made enough for 4 loaves last night and let it rise.  Now I am baking one.  Testing the refrigerator stability of the dough for 1 week by storing a loaf and have 2 in the freezer I will bake at 2 and 5 weeks to see how they taste.  Just my European Peasant loaf but I like it.

Also been studying for the Ham Technician exam.  There is one locally on the 21st of April and I want to be ready then.

Started watching YouTube vids and picked up the base line Lansky kit with the rods at Fin Feather and Fur.  Within 20 minutes had a respectable edge back on my Kershaw Chill and worked though my other EDC blades and my Mora and Schrade fixed blades.  I think I may just try picking up one of the angle guides you clamp on an using my stone for some of the other larger blades the Lansky is pretty small.

Made some dough using an Olive oil bread recipe.  It said it could be used for pizza or calzones so I made calzones.  Came out pretty well but crust was really tough

My count on shootable 38sp rounds has reached 525 over the goal I set when I started for my 13 skills.  I didn’t think it would go that fast.  Downside is I am down to 4 boxes (400) small pistol primers and still have 500 spent cases to go.  Plus I am already shooting through them.  Down to 390 rounds left of the ones I have made so far.

With primers as rare as hens teeth I may have to slow down on the reloading until this whole gun ban thing is over.

After several more experiments with simpler breads I find that the Rye recipes are the ones I enjoy most.  Next to try some variants.

While my first group of reloads had some issue with primer seating I sorted out the settings on my Loadmaster and cranked out 100 rounds in a single evening.  Taking 100 factory loads out for my 357 lever gun to true up the sights then I will test my hand load for accuracy.  Looks like we may have good enough weather on Sunday to do some shooting.

Tried my European Peasant bread in the crockpot.  Easy but not as tasty as oven baked.  Kinda spongy.  Tastes ok but the texture is off.  Also took 3:15:00 to bake.

Had to work from home today due to weather issues so at lunch time I mixed my first batch of “Peasant Bread”.  This is the first thing I have ever backed that wasn’t from a cardboard box or a paper tube.

Considering I had to ask my roommate what a bread hook looks like for the mixer I think it turned out fairly well.  I did buy a book to get me started Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

The result of test 1 is attached.  Test 1 was in the oven on the Pizza Stone.  Next I am going to try the crock pot method.  Until the weather lets me try in the wood fired pizza oven.

Went out and tested my first 15 rounds.  All fired though the primers on a couple were not seated deep enough and made it hard to advance the cylinder.  Also tried in a lever action .357 Rossi rifle and it ran them fine.  Went home and made 50 more with a slightly higher charge this time.  Deprimed 150 more rounds of brass and put them in tumbler last night for 3 hours.  They look good.  Just need to inspect them and start up another 150.

Over my end of year vacation I picked up a Lee Loadmaster progressive press with the .38 Sp dies.  In addition I purchased case and primer pocket trimmers, a case tumbler, media, a scale, as well as 500 bullets, 1000 pistol primers and a bottle of Bullseye powder.  As far as I know that is everything I need.

So far I have run 20 cases through the machine and managed to get it adjusted so 14 are correct.  Had a few issues with seating depth at first and a couple times the primers didn’t feed.  Have to wait until the weekend to try pulling the trigger on these 14 good ones, so I am not going to make any more until I know these work.