This last few weeks has certainly been a hectic one with trying to get almost 50 custom guns out for Christmas, and a few are still being worked on as we get into the last week before Christmas. Combine that with the release of a couple of new series and a complication with one of them and you have a very busy few weeks.
Our Frontier Classic was released and the prototype shown and sent off to a couple of gun writers. Almost immediately we received a letter from Colt threatening to sue us over the word Frontier that they say they have a trademark on. Not having the time to waste on fighting childish crap like this I agreed to change the name. It will be known from here on as the Western Classic, unless someone has a trademark on the word Western. If they do they can just kiss my fuzzy little ass.
The other new gun just released is our new improved version of the Keith #5, and color pictures are finally on the site. Initial response to both guns has been very good.
I have another revolver that I have almost finished that will actually be auctioned off in this next week to 10 days. It is a special gun and one that I believe is the fanciest and classiest that we have ever built. I took an old model Ruger, that was in excellent condition and built a 44 special cylinder and barrel for it, replaced the alloy gripframe and housing with all steel ones, high polished it, full engraved it, and I mean FULL engraved. Then we fit a set of elephant ivory grips to it, installed our own interchangeable blade system front sight and did a full action job and timing on it. We did the Maxi Throat and Deep Dish crown on it and then last night I did the Black Chromex finish to it. We have stainless pins, and screws fitted to it and the gun will come in a dark oak presentation case. This will be the first of what I hope will be a long line of very special guns that we will release one at a time each year this time. This one is dubbed our "2004 Classic" and has engraved on the right side of the barrel, "ONE of ONE".
This special gun will be auctioned off sometime between now and the end of the year. I will take pictures of it tomorrow and post them here on the site and the actual auction will be held on my forum at "Ask Reeder Custom Guns". The pictures will also be posted there and a detailed run down of how we are going to do this. The proceeds of this auction will go to a very worthy cause. Proceeds will go to the "Send Reeder's Ass To Africa Foundation". That's such a worthy cause I get all choked up just thinking about it.
Speaking of Africa. You didn't think I was going to drivel on here for another page and not talk about Africa, did you? Those of you not interested in hunting with me in Africa, scan down several paragraphs.
A couple of days ago I had a fellow call and ask questions about our African hunts. He, like me, is involved with record book hunting. He asked about the records we have taken over the past several years. I hadn't looked at them as a whole, just as one hunt at a time. So to answer his question I went back over the last 6 hunts, not counting this last hunt as I really haven't received the latest results from John yet. I have the tentative listings but the new book will be out in about a month and these won't be in the book as the scoring stopped about a year ago for the new book.
Anyway, this is the results of 6 hunts, 1997 to 2003. We skipped 2001 and went to Australia. And I haven't listed in details the animals we have taken above #10 in the book. Here is what my hunters have taken...
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Eland..#1-#2-#3-#5
- Kudu..(Cape and Greater)..-#2-#3-#5-#10
- Springbok..#1-#2
- Black Wildebeest...#1-#2
- Blue Wildebeest..#1-#2-#9
- Gemsbok..#1-#2-#5-#6
-
Red Hartebeest...#1-#2-#3
- Blesbok...#1-#2-#4
- Grey Duiker...#1-#2-#6
- Steenbok...#1
- Warthog...#6
- Impala..#4
- Waterbuck..#2
- Nyala..#3
- Klipspringer..#1
- Common Reedbuck...#1-#2
- Mountain Reedbuck..#1
Plus there were 11 more in the top 50 and another 10 in the top 100.
That's 17 in the top 10 and 21 more in the top 100. Not bad at all for a bunch of FNGs and a couple of FOGs. And there may well be a few more that I didn't write down in my log book. This next hunt should be at least as good and probably even better as we will be hunting in the area next to the Kalahari Desert, which is absolutely full of large record book game.
If you are thinking of joining us in April for our next Africa hunt, get in touch with me as soon as you can. In about 3 weeks or so Colleen will be working on booking our airfare for us.
The SHOT SHOW will be held the last week of January in Las Vegas and as usual there will be hundreds of new items premiered that week. I will have a round-up of many of them here for you and touch on some of them before the show. On new and unusual things I try not to mention them much before the show so as not to ruin anything for them. This one item seems to be known already all across the country as I have had literally dozens of people call about it. It is the new 460 S&W cartridge and gun. This one is simply put, a new longer 454 or 45 long colt. The case length is 1.8, much longer than the regular 45 long colt and much longer than the 454. It will be released in the new X frame from Smith & Wesson. From what I have heard this one should be a real thumper.
Getting back to the subject of hunting the 2004 Celebrity Handgun Hunt was held a couple of weeks ago at the Y.O. Ranch in Texas, our 15th such hunt. It's all for charity and to feed those that need help. The hunt is comprised of about 35 of the top handgun hunters in the country, some special invited guests, some gun writers and from time to time actually a few celebrities show up. This year we had a packed house, with 62 hunters showing up. It is by invitation only and normally 55 is the max that the camp can hold. This year we had them stacked up 4 to a cabin to make room for everyone.
I hunted this year with Charlie Herf and my son Kase. Larry Kovach and Jason Parr were scheduled to go but had to drop out at the last minute for personal reasons. The highlight of our part of the hunt was Charlie's huge elk that he took with our 410 GNR revolver. He took the elk with the scoped revolver shown in our "special guns" section. Now taking a big bull elk is not anything special for the 410 GNR as it has taken Cape Buffs, American Bison and Australian buffalo time and again with the 255 grain LBT bullet. But this big 7X6 bull was taken with Larry Kovach's Cartridge Performance load using the Sierra 170 grain bullet. Charlie hit the elk 4 times in the chest with that little bullet and each bullet plowed right on thru leaving an exit would 2 to 3 inches wide on the off side. I didn't know until afterward that he was using Larry's light load meant for deer and such. But that little 170 grain JHP from Sierra proved itself again. That has been the premier bullet for our 41 GNR for over 25 years but the first time that I know of that it has taken game this size . And this bull was weighed at 700 pounds. There was a prize for the hunter bringing in the most meat so each animal was officially weighed, and that 700 pounds was after being gutted. So this bull was a monster. Congrats go out to Charlie for his prize winning bull.
All in all it was a good hunt, with almost 15,000 pounds of meat being taken for the needy. And that was what was important.
Until next time, have a good Christmas and a good holiday.
Gary