Lead-Up to the Bidet Shoot

Now that I am finally all caught up with unpacking, reading blogs and cleaning my guns, and people have emailed/linked their movies and videos, I can give everyone a proper AAR of the Bidet Shoot.

Let's pick up where I left off, which was Thursday morning.

Countdown to the Bidet Shoot: Day 2 (continued)

I picked up my rental car, which was a Ford Fusion. It immediately endeared itself to me because of the following characteristics:

• Electronic Everything, with a nifty HUD and controls on the steering wheel. 
• Interior gadget illumination was a pleasing cool blue instead of annoying orange. 
• Nifty interface that told me how long I'd been driving, what my fuel efficiency was (about 31 mi/gal, if I recall correctly), and how many miles until I ran out of gas. 
• A trunk so large I could fit a 50" long,  two-gun wide hard case diagonally inside it! And there was lots of room for other crap, too. 
• A glittery black paint job!  It managed to be both goth and pony at the same time. I immediately named it the Princess Lunamobile. 

The Lunamobile was a pleasure to drive, and I was sad to have to return her to the rental place. While this is not meant as a full endorsement of the vehicle, as I do not know how it would perform long-term, I wish to point out that I drove it for approximately 1600 miles (I didn't write down the odometer reading, sadly) and it performed flawlessly.  And like I said, the trunk could accommodate an encased Mosin-Nagant. 

I detoured to Ocala to pick up some ammo from a friend who sadly wasn't able to make it -- a couple boxes of 7.62x39 for my SKS and an unknown amount of  loose 9mm (I want to guess between 250 and 500 rounds) -- and then headed north. 

Let me just say that navigating through an Atlanta suburb at 10 pm, trying to find (via printed-out directions) a house I've never seen, is not fun, y'all.  Still, a grateful shout-out to Johnny V and his lovely wife for letting me crash in their nerdroom:  I slept surrounded by Marvel Universe action figures. 

Countdown to the Bidet Shoot: Day 1

After overnighting in Marietta, I left Georgia and entered Tennessee, where I had lunch with Oleg Volk in Nashville. 

Okay, I might as well get this out of the way now:  Oleg Volk Oleg Volk, I am friends with Oleg Volk.  I don't want to seem like I'm name-dropping or anything (even though that's exactly what it sounds like, I'm afraid); I just really like the fellow and he seems to regard me in equal esteem. 

Anyway, we had a wonderful lunch of Pad Thai and he put my fears to rest by making this simple point: "Women without personality have to make friends solely through sex appeal.  You, however,  have managed to make people love you without ever having seen you." I thought that was awfully nice of him. 

He also gave me some .22LR and 7.62x54R to shoot. Given the current scarcity of .22, I am tempted to sell it on eBay. 

So boldened, I continued my drive for Benton, KY. 

After many more hours of driving, lots of cursing at poor directions and finally being navigated in to the hotel via cell phone, I finally met my merry band of miscreants: Oddball, The_Jack, and Awelowynt.  Despite my initial fears, they did not run in horror at the devastation that is my face. In fact, were all quite lovely to me and immediately adopted me as one of their own.

What I found funny is that all of them were quite tall and broad: they had at least a full foot and about 100 pounds on me. I really felt like the Little Sister of the Gun-blogosphere (emphasis on little) surrounded by her large, burly big brothers. 

Safety: I had it. :D

After making myself presentable with a shower and a change of clothes, we met up with Roadkill and we all went out for dinner. After-dinner festivities involved a rather unexpected session of show-and-tell as most of the boys, lacking a large trunk capable of holding their hardware, brought their boomsticks up to their rooms. Naturally, this resulted in me having to bring mine up as well, and we all oohed and ahhed over each other's pretties.

Apparently I am becoming "that knife person" among my gunnie friends, because every time I see an improper blade I have to fix it. You see, Awelowynt  had a nifty bayonet for his equally nifty trench shotgun, but it had no edge on it whatsoever.  As in, there was a millimeter of thickness where the cutting edge should have been. (This is likely because it is a replica.) I asked him if he wanted it to be functional and he said "Sure, why not," so I immediately pulled out my Speedy Sharp and EZE-Lap and went to work. 

Thanks to Cheaper Than Dirt for this picture. 

Cutting a proper edge into it was more work than I had energy for, so I had to make to with just sharpening the tip. It's still not a proper bayonet, but it's suitably stabby that it might make a decent spear.

Immediately after that, Oddball asked me if I would take a look at his CETME bayonet. This was much easier to sharpen because it once had a proper edge. 

Thanks to Liberty Tree Collectors for this picture. 

I could understand why he asked for help, as it felt like it was made from a tough high-carbon steel. Once again, I was again grateful for the Speedy Sharp. This time, I was able to give the bayo a proper working edge. Victory!

After that, we all went to sleep as we had a big day ahead of us. And because this post is getting too big, I think I will give the shoot itself its own entry.