Limbo Time-wasters

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Apropos to to an earlier posting about projects stuck in limbo, how does a gun guy fill in the time between range sessions when he's caught up on reloading? Here some examples from my last few weeks, in no particular order. Any other suggestions/recommendations welcomed.

Thrift store hunting -- there is a local wheeler-dealer named Yoshi who buys up old estates, mainly from local Japanese-American families, and piles everything into two large buildings that he opens to the public a couple days a week. Usually its a general mix of old tools, furniture and housewares, but every now and then an old gun guy passes on and his kids either live far away or can't be bothered to sort through the mess left behind. Last week I found a Lyman case trimming kit, unused and still packed in the box, along with a mint Lyman front shooting rest. Got both of those, plus seven illustrated history books for $50.

BTW, I went back to Yoshi's today and this was my haul (it was a good day!):

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Small Arms Review crossword -- I'm not usually a puzzle guy, but I actually learn some stuff doing these.

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Cataloging/photographing the arsenal -- I know what I own, but if I get creamed by a bus someday my wife might find it useful to know where everything is stored and how much it was worth when I bought it. The trick here, of course, is to make sure she can find the list when she needs it, but not before then! Might also prove useful after a break-in. I started this spreadsheet years back, but when things are slow I'll go back and bring it up to date with any additions, deletions or changes in storage location.

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Reading pricey gun reference books -- I subscribe to Gun Collector and pick up reference works from Collector Grade, Schiffer, Wet Dog, etc. These usually aren't casual reading, but when I have the down time and am in the proper mood, I'll tackle something like Edward Ezell's "SPIW The Deadliest Weapon that Never Was."

Watching old TV shows -- Gunsmoke, Lawman, Rifleman, Soldiers of Fortune. IMO, some of the stories back in these old '50s TV shows were better than anything Hollywood is currently spewing. Sam Peckinpaw, for example, wrote some surprisingly tough scripts for early TV.
 
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This one made me chuckle.

FINDING all of the firearm related stuff that I know I already own and organizing it into fewer areas so that I can find it again when I want it!

Researching and planning future acquisitions. It's been years, but every once in a while it really comes home to me how useful the Internet has been for both doing research then finding what I want. The days of relying on gun magazines and the fellas down at the gun stores are over. You old guys know what I mean!
 
Get into firearms restoration. I like to get old guns that have been beat to heck (particularly shotguns which you can often find pretty cheap) and redo them. Repair/replace whatever is broken on them, refinish the stocks, etc. I just recently got the stuff for slow rust bluing which I'll be trying out this weekend on a beat up Stevens 520 that I got for $75 :D.
 
I would shoot every day if I had the time and opportunity. As I live in the real world, the time gets divided between work, remodeling projects (on a 99 year old home), fishing, travel, and an attempt at photography among other hobbies. I love picking through estate sales and pawn shops for firearm related treasures but most of my free time is spent elsewhere on non-gun related pursuits.

Tearing down my old balcony.
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Rebuilding (thank you internet as I am no carpenter).
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This week’s jaunt of 2,400 miles wrapped up in NOLA.
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The wife fishing the intracoastal waterway in Texas, a bit of photo editing for effect.
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Cemetery photo
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I would shoot every day if I had the time and opportunity. As I live in the real world, the time gets divided between work, remodeling projects (on a 99 year old home), fishing, travel, and an attempt at photography among other hobbies. I love picking through estate sales and pawn shops for firearm related treasures but most of my free time is spent elsewhere on non-gun related pursuits.

Tearing down my old balcony.
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My OP may have overstated things a little.

Full disclosure: Last week I rebuilt a sagging cellar door, pedaled my spin bike 15 minutes each morning, paid bills, went to my doctor, watered the trees, fed the neighborhood stray cats, took my non-driving wife to dinner and shopping several times, helped a even more elderly neighbor twice, built a film holder and manually previewed several hundred feet of 16mm home movies (prior to having them digitized), scanned a pile of photos for another aging friend who is frightened of technology, did some stargazing, spent two hours at the range and did a bunch of other semi-productive things I can't recall just now cause my brain is old. As much as I love guns, handloading and shooting, and despite being a retiree, I've perhaps a dozen hours per week I can spare for this particular obsession.

At some point a moderator will likely lock this thread for straying too far from rifles and shooting.


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It wasn’t my intention to veer so far off, but I’m often curious about the daily lives of fellow High Roaders. We respond to threads, sharing knowledge, opinions, details on our projects that go boom. Most everything else is shrouded.

For those who remember rcmodel, his passing was probably the first time most of us got to see the man behind the knowledge. Anyway, it was on my mind when I responded to this post as my typical firearms projects are mostly pedestrian in nature (read ho-hum). Were it not for 6 kids and 5 rescued cats life would look very different.

Back on topic, I also catalog my collection. I also keep log books for some rifles to keep track of velocity, round count, and accuracy, occasionally keeping a target or snapping a photo.
 
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