Author: Tom Lindsay

Just a regular guy who likes to shoot and cook barbecue. Leukemia survivor. Bourbon drinker. Chemical Engineer.

The Road

On By Tom LindsayIn Uncategorized2 Comments

My son, the Dauphin, is in 9th grade honors literature, and was assigned to read The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. Having not read the book nor seen the movie, I borrowed his copy over a couple of days, and read it myself.

He finished the book and completed the assignments his teacher had given, which were a nice mix of questions about the symbolism that McCarthy uses, along with questions about what he would have done in certain situations.

Since he finished the book, I slipped the movie into our Netflix queue, and we watched it last evening.

As you know, The Road is a story about a father and son making their way through a post-apocalyptic countryside. While the exact nature of the disaster that devastated their world is never revealed, either in the book or the movie, it’s clear that it must have been some kind of EMP followed by wildfires, and societal collapse.

It wasn’t an easy movie to watch, especially for a man with an only son. (My daughter is off at college, and told us recently that she has no desire to see the movie.) My wife felt the same way.

I’m sure others have discussed this book and movie from a preparation viewpoint, so I won’t go there.

But I will share one observation from my son. We were talking after the movie about the gun they carried, and how they only had 2 bullets.

My son said, “Dad, now I know why you own four handguns. It’s one for each of us.”

Indeed.

Coming Soon – Gun Cart Mark II

On By Tom LindsayIn Gun Cart2 Comments

Back in May I wrote about a gun cart I had put together using a used stroller I had bought at the thrift store.

I’ve used the stroller for a full shooting season now, with success. I took it to the LuckyGunner Blogger Shoot in May, and it was well received, and it sure saved my old back the trouble of schlepping four rifles, a shooting bag, a cooler, an ammo can, and a camp chair from the parking area to the firing line.

Likewise, for USPSA and Action Pistol matches, it’s been handy not to have to lug my stuff up and down hills.

I would call the Gun Cart Mark I a success.

But I think I can do better.

While overall I’ve been very pleased with the cart, after 6 months of use, I think I can improve on the design. First of all, the performance of the small wheels over rough terrain left something to be desired. Yes, it worked, but I now know why so many of the commercial carts out there are built on a chassis of three large wheels.

Some things definitely worked well, even features that the commercial carts left out. The horizontal bar, which I call the Stock Bar (because that’s where I lash the gun stocks) especially works well. I definitely think it’s an improvement over individual clamps for each gun, which I’ve seen.

The large deck works well, too, and removing the seating area was a good thing. I sometimes see other carts that have been built from strollers, and the seating is left in place, and it limits the size of the shooting bag you can carry, without adding any positive feature.

It wasn’t hard to build the cart, so my plans are soon to visit the local thrift stores and find a three wheel stroller, and build Mark II.

Look for a report when I’m done.