Rendezvous Report - Part Three

Here's some more pictures from Range Day at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous in Reno:

KeeWee tries out a 9mm. AR. with Uncle supervising.

"Hey Chris! Where should I aim this 45 Long Colt revolver to hit that 1,000 yard target?" Chris Byrne, the Anarchangel.

KeeWee tries out Mel Byrne's mini-sized 1911 based .380 with Mel instructing.

Joe Huffman's shirt - Joe is the Boomershoot guy!

Chuck Ziegenfuss gives KeeWee some instruction.


Rob from The Kitchen and his rimfire lever gun.

"Dang! Is this this empty again...........?"
JimmyB, The Conservative UAW Guy.

KeeWee finds that the Thompson is fun, too!
That's Fodder from Ride Fast - Shoot Straight spotting.

All good things must eventually come to an end, and after a long day of sending lead down range we packed the toys and headed back to town.

Once we had returned to the Circus Circus, we cleaned up a bit, grabbed some clean clothes, and headed to the Mandalay Banquet room for our Rendezvous dinner.

I was busy at the banquet being the M/C and keeping everything sort of under control, so I didn't have much time for taking pictures, but KeeWee and some of the other attendees did. For a report on the banquet, check out KeeWee's post here.

The Rendezvous was an incredible amount of fun, lots of food, great conversations, and some of the most interesting people you could ever want to meet. It's time right now to make up your mind that next year you are going to be there too. Don't get stuck in the "maybe I will......" mode and end up waiting too long and missing the Rendezvous. The Rendezvous is unlike any other event in the world, and if you enjoy shooting sports and our freedom to shoot as much as we do, you really should consider attending. Unless of course, if as JimmyB says "You suck!" then don't bother, but if you are reading this it's highly unlikely that you do, so start planning now to join us next October in Reno!

Rendezvous Report - Part Two

From all the pictures both here and on other blogs, it would seem that all we did was eat for three days, but that isn't exactly the case. I think I am safe in saying, however, that no one actually LOST weight in Reno! Actually the meals were one of the highlights of the Rendezvous, not for the food, which I enjoyed, but for the conversations underway throughout the meals.

All you can eat - YUMM.......

After lunch on Friday we gathered in the Hospitality room for an informal meeting with Glen Caroline and Ashley Varner from the NRA. We all enjoyed a spirited discussion on ways to best help shooters, 2nd. Amendment rights, and gun rights to continue making positive movements. We talked about the role of the NRA and the differences between the perceptions of the NRA and the realities, and ways to improve the perceptions.

Glen, in the green shirt, and Chris Byrne, discuss perception versus realities of the NRA. Ashley (the second best looking blond lady there) is on the right.

The NRA session was well received, and I think it was a major step in establishing communication and understanding between the NRA and the Gun Bloggers. Hopefully Glen and Ashley will be able to attend the Gun Blogger Rendezvous next year.

Larry Weeks from Brownell's.

Following the NRA session, we went directly into show and tell. Here's a few pictures from show and tell:

Uncle shows off the newly developed stealth M-16. If it weren't for the attached Ko-Tonics 6.8SPC upper you wouldn't even know the rest of it was there.....

Kevin from The Smallest Minority showed of a nifty conversion for a 1911 where you can have it cocked, and still have the hammer down. Uncle showed off the Ko-Tonics 6.8SPC upper for the AR15.

Dirtcrashr from Anthroblogogy showed an antique (but good shooting) 30-40 Krag and a really neat antique .22 caliber top break single shot Colt Olympic pistol.

Dirtcrashr and his 30-40 Krag.

US Citizen from Traction Control showed the .50 caliber AR15 conversion and some other cool accessories for the AR's. Chris Byrne, the Anarchangel showed a number of neato handguns. In short, there was a ton of cool stuff at show and tell, and I'm still probably forgetting some of them! If I failed to mention your stuff, it's because of brain-fade on my part!

Friday night was serious "Hospitality Room" time, and the stories went on well past midnight. I can't really do justice to the night, words fail me. You just had to be there......

Saturday morning, after another big breakfast, we gathered up all the toys and headed out to the range for a day of brass emptying. I got to shoot lots and lots of really nifty stuff!

Larry from Brownell's sends a little lead down range.

Chuck with his M1-A.

US Citizen with his AR, capable of shooting either lead bullets or photon torpedoes.

We all spent the better part of the day shooting all sorts of stuff, and I've got a lot more range pictures still to post. I'll get those posted in Part Three....

......end of Part Two

Rendezvous Report -- Part One

Everyone else who attended the Gun Blogger Rendezvous is way ahead of me as far as getting posts and pictures from the Rendezvous up on their blogs. None the less, better late than never.

This post will be short, as it's past 11pm., and I've got a pin shoot tomorrow at CWSA, so I am going to try to get a little sleep tonight.

On downwind for Reno's airport.

Reno sits down in sort of a big hole, surrounded by either big foothills, or small mountains, depending on where you're from.

Some of the gang piggin' out at breakfast.

In addition to all the other stuff going on, we also did a whole lot of eating. Breakfast buffet, all you can eat, unlimited bacon, everything from biscuits and gravy to cakes and pastries. I wanted to eat some of everything, and tried really hard to do so!

Some of the cakes and pastries.

We all enjoyed sharing several meals together, and the combination of the food and the conversation made meals one of the highlights of the Rendezvous.

End of Part One (I need sleep.....)

NRA At The Rendezvous

I just received this email from Ashley Varner, who, along with Glen Caroline, also from the NRA, met with the Gun Bloggers in Reno last Friday afternoon at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous:

I just wanted to thank you again for scheduling the happy hour meeting and being such a gracious host with introductions and beverages and allowing some time during your GBR for us to chat and get to know one another. Glen and I really enjoyed the happy hour with you folks, and we hope you feel the same way.

Just as the GBR gives you fellow bloggers a fantastic opportunity to meet and interact in person and make the community feel a bit smaller, it can hopefully have a similar impact on forming a relationship between NRA and the gun blogging community. Personally, I've enjoyed reading the blogs this week after having had personal interaction with of each of you. A small change, perhaps -- but a good development, certainly.

Thank you again for your hospitality and your time. We appreciate it and look forward to continuing the dialogue with you and the rest of the gun blogging community!

Take care and have a great weekend,
Ashley

Ashley N. Varner
National Rifle Association
Institute for Legislative Action
Public Affairs

Rendezvous Reports

KeeWee and I have now returned from the Gun Blogger Rendezvous in Reno, and in a word, we're exhausted! We had a fantastic time, stayed up way too late BS'ing with the other folks, got up way too early, ate way too much, and now we're paying for it. At the range I shot more cool guns in one day than you could shake a stick at. KeeWee even shot Chuck's M1 Garrand. For those of you that don't know, KeeWee is of a "smallish" stature, and the Garrand is a 30-06! WOW!

A number of the other Rondy attendees are getting up a lot of good posts with lots of pictures, so here's a short list of posts to check out about the Rendezvous:

Kevin at The Smallest Minority:
http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2007/10/gbr-ii.html

JimmyB The Conservative UAW Guy:
http://theconservativeuawguy.blogspot.com/2007/10/and-good-time-was-had-by-all.html

Dirtcrashr at Anthroblogogy:
http://anthroblogogy.blogspot.com/2007/10/gunblogger-rendezvous.html

US Citizen at Traction Control:
http://tractioncontrol.well-regulatedmilitia.org/?p=682
http://tractioncontrol.well-regulatedmilitia.org/?p=683

Fodder at Ride Fast - Shoot Straight:
http://ridenshoot.blogspot.com/2007/10/gunbloggers-at-range.html

KeeWee at KeeWee's Corner:
http://keeweescorner.blogspot.com/2007/10/reno-day-four.html

Sebastian at Snowflakes in Hell:
http://www.snowflakesinhell.com/?p=1700

Chuck Ziegenfuss at From My Position - On The Way....
http://tcoverride.blogspot.com/2007/10/pretty-good-time-after-all.html

There are some other attendees planning Rondy posts and pictures, and I'll try to add them to the list as I come across them.

Oh yeah, I need to put some posts together, too............

Short Update

We've been so busy here at the Rendezvous that I haven't had time to do any posting, but US Citizen has some range pictures posted from yesterday's range day.

Gun Blogger Range Day Pictures

There will be lots of reports and pictures posted all this following week.

More later, but we're off to go see the car museum and the river front park for now.......

Next Stop - RENO !

I've got the bags packed, (thanks to KeeWee's help) and there's going to be a lot of very nice door prizes at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous dinner on Saturday night. Uncle will be bringing along that Ko-Tonics 6.8SPC upper for us to shoot on Saturday out at the range, and at the banquet the upper will be auctioned off to the highest bidder. These uppers normally go for about $700 bucks, and the minimum bid will be $400. ANYTHING over $400 will go to project Valour-IT, so here's a chance to pick up a 6.8 SPC upper, save some money, and help out a very worthy cause, all at the same time!

See you in Reno!