The Taurus PT809 Pistol

I recently purchased a self defense pistol as a birthday present for my wife. She has been carrying a Ruger MKI for most of our married life in .22 long rifle. I load it with hyper-velocity rounds for her, but those are still not really a self defense round. She just does not like shooting the .45 acp I carry and felt more comfortable with the Ruger .22 pistol.

I have been looking at several large capacity magazine 9 mm autos and settled on the new Taurus PT809 as the most gun for the money. This is a modern polymer/steel pistol with some really neat features. It has a right side and left side magazine release, slide release and safety/decocker, in other words it is fully ambidextrous. It comes with three different sized interchangeable back straps to fit the grips to the shooter. The front and back of the grips are checkered and grooved for a non-slip grip. The pistol has a front rail for lazer or light attachment along with a wide smooth faced trigger and a polished feed ramp. Three dot sights are standard for instant sighting in low or normal light situations. Along with a magazine that holds 17 rounds the pistol has a beveled magazine well for secure and fast loading. The metal parts have a Tennifer finish which is supposed to be a high tech kind of case hardening that is more stainless than stainless steel.

In this day of bargain box store ammo I have noticed in some lots of ammo failure of some rounds to fire. This usually means waiting a few seconds, clearing the round and running it back through the next magazine to see if it will fire. The Taurus PT809 pistol has a unique second strike ability, if a round fails to fire just pull the trigger again and in most cases the round will fire. This could be a life saver in a bad situation. I however recommend that you only load the best and most reliable ammo you can obtain when you are counting on the firearm for self defense. Save the bargain brands for plinking and target practice.

All in all after shooting this pistol and having my wife get familiar with the way it shoots I am impressed with the function and accuracy of this little gun. It came in a hard case with two magazines, a mag loader, bore brush, lock key and three grips all for around $350.00 at most box sporting goods stores.  You could spend a lot more for a lot less gun.  As always I had to buy this gun with hard earned money just like you do and I get nothing for this review.  It is what I have my wife carry so you know what I think about it. 
Good shooting, Wild Ed

If you would like to read more about the Taurus PT809 here is a link to the Taurus website http://www.taurususa.com/product-details.cfm?id=602&category=Pistol

Homemade Sausage East Texas Style

I belong to a blackpowder shooting forum that is mostly just a bunch of good ole do it yourself country boys. Now don’t get me wrong there are a few city dudes and even a few foreigners but we all pretty much get along with just a flare up once in a while. I guess what I am trying to say it is more than just a forum where you go to ask questions and get answers on anything related to blackpowder shooting. It is kind of like a family group. If you ever heard the old saying “hang around old guys cause they know stuff” there are a lot of old guys that are members of this forum. If you would like to visit and see if you fit in feel free to stop by, you might even learn something.

One of my buds on the forum goes by the alias of ET or East Texas. He has lots of gardening, canning and general homestead living skills and is always sharing them with others. A lot of good information is available that ET has placed in the Do it yourself section and I got his permission to pass on one of his best to you guys. You know how well I like to BBQ and how I love smoked sausage. Here is East Texas version of homemade sausage written as only ET would tell it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have, Wild Ed



HOMEMADE SAUSAGE, DO IT YER OWNSELF
By East Texas



Well, I like sausage! It can be made out of just about any meat you want, chicken, beef, pork, or venison, or out of any combination of them! Now my favorite is venison and pork! A pigs ass is always gonna be pork, but some pork, is leaner than others! I like to use the wild hogs, because there is less fat on em! If your doin venison yer gonna need some pork, because the venison is very lean also, practically no fat on em, so the meat will be very dry unless ya add a little pork to keep it a little juicy! Now don’t get me wrong I like my sausage to be a little dry, I hate greasy sausage! Like what you city slickers with yer skinny city shoes buy at the wally world! So heres how I make mine.


Now first thing I do is break out the meat grinder, I have one of Cabelas, one of the best 100 dollar bills I’ve ever spent! I also have a couple of the old hand grinders in different sizes as back up and grind up the meat of choice!

My [perfect] mixture is usually gonna be 75% venison to 25% pork.    Now while I’m grinding all this meat I take my sausage casings, and start soaking them in warm water.  You can get a package of sausage casings at most meat markets and a lot of grocery stores carry them also they usually run between $3.50-$5.00

While the casings are soaking I grind all the meat and keep sticking it in the fridge until it’s all done!

Now let me pause right here fer a second to say, GERALDO, GET YER EYES OFFIN MY PUDDIN' CUPS!  Now when it’s all been ground up, I break out the meat mixer, again Cabelas seein the trend here?  You don’t have to use a meat mixer, you can do it by hand but believe me, it’s worth the money to have one.

Now I use the highly accurate and scientific method of gettin the proportions of meat correct, its one handful of pork to three handfuls of venison! When it’s mixed up to my likin, I start adding seasoning. I sprinkle it in while turning the meat in the mixer and get it all mixed in, now seasoning is something ya kind gotta do to your taste, I like the basics,salt,pepper,[coarse ground!], and garlic, lots of garlic!

Now if ya want to make breakfast sausage or pan sausage as we poor folks like to call it, you might want some sage or whatever seasoning suits yer taste! Fer pan sausage you won’t need the casings either. Anyway you can experiment on yer own!

I added Sage and Red Pepper flakes to mine. Wild Ed

 

Now you should have a pile of sausage ready to stuff!

 

So now I break out my sausage stuffer, nope not Cabelas   harbor freight! It’s a 5 lb stuffer, meanin it holds 5 lbs at a time. It comes with different size nozzles but I like the largest one cause I like big ol fat sausage, not the skinny city slicker sausage that ya buy in town!   grab a tub of butter and grease up the nozzle good then start feedin the casings onto the nozzle

Now just sos ya understand, ya keep shovin the casings up on the nozzle till ya get to the end, then tie a knot in the end. Start pushin the handle of the stuffer down and it will start filling up the casings, you’ll develope a feel fer how fast or slow after ya bust a hole in em a time or two! (?^ when yer finished, you should have something that looks like this!

Now let me pause again fer a second to say, GERALDO! QUIT EYEBALLIN MY COLD BEER!  now I had a few pounds of sausage left over  after I ran out of casings, so I’ve got some sleeves that I get from the meat house I use to put my ground meat in and I just marked them pan sausage and fill them up with what was left   I use green zip ties to seal them up and red ones fer ground so in the freezers, I can easily tell the difference!   

Now I got a couple of holes in my sausage too, I had my buddy Rob helpin and he had never done it before, so we had a little learnin curve goin, but all in all we did pretty good! I figger we made between 80-100lbs of sausage!  Now it’s ready to put in the smokehouse, or the freezer, and can be smoked when it’s cooked!   yo can figure a 1 lb sausage pack at the store is gonna cost ya about 3-4 bucks, I got about 50 cents worth of lead and powder, 5 bucks fer casings and about 7 bucks worth of seasonings fer a total of roughly, 13-15 bucks fer say 90 lbs of sausage, that’s pretty cheap, btw, its GREAT tasting sausage and you can DO IT YER OWNSELF!

The Turkeys Come Home to Wildwoods

My brother and I along with our wives have been feeding and protecting a few wild Rio Grande Turkeys up at our place at Lampasas. There used to be a lot of turkeys on the place and the surrounding ranches.   When we were kids we often saw them, but for at least a decade they have been gone except for a passing gobbler looking for a hen once in a blue moon. I can remember when they used to roost in some of the taller older trees on the ranch. Last year three gobblers and a couple of hens found our feeders. We starting putting out a variety of foods that turkeys like to eat in hopes of holding them and restoring them on the place. We have not allowed any hunting of turkeys on our place and have been trying to keep them from getting shot by holding them on our acreage as much as possible. We lost one of the gobblers deer season that was killed by the landowner next to us. We have been hoping to get them breeding in the area and get a foothold on bringing them back in numbers to the ranch.


This weekend we all went up and did some work at the place and plowed a new food plot. My brother had drilled a water well and wanted to set up a sprinkler to be able to help the food plot along so we plowed it close enough to the well to try to get a start on the crop.  We are hoping the deer and turkey will have something extra to see them through hard times.

After a day of hot work we changed out the memory cards in the game cameras and could not wait to get home and load them on the computer to see what visitors had come by the feeders in the last week. We thought you might like to see some of the unusual critters we had this week. Hope you enjoy them as much as Mike and I did, Wild Ed

Pemmican the Original Trail Food

The Comanche, Apache and other Native American Indian tribes that roamed Texas did not have MRE meals or power trail bars in their hunting bags or packs. If they were on the trail and were not able to hunt or forage they still had to eat. The foods they carried must provide protein, fats, sugars and enough energy to sustain them for extended periods of time with enough strength to fight, hunt or whatever else was needed. Through out the study of their histories it was found that they carried three major types of food. These were Pemmican, Jerked Meat and Parched Corn. They also supplemented with local foods such as tubers, acorns and other foods.  I have covered making Jerky several times and will cover how to parch corn in a later article. This week I want to talk about Pemmican. Most will ask what is Pemmican. Basic Pemmican is dried or jerked meat pounded or shredded and added to crushed and dried fruits and berries. This is all held together with rendered fat and pressed into cakes or balls and dried. It provides a nutritious meal that can sustain one indefinitely. It was and still is easy to prepare, keeps for long periods of time and is relatively easy to carry. There are all sorts of ways to vary it from the basic recipe with the additions of nuts, honey, veggies and your other favorite trail snacks. I have even made it with M&M candies in the mixture, not very authentic but it sure was good on a long backpack hunting trip.

Here is the basic recipe for Pemmican

You will need dried or jerked meat and crushed dried fruit. You may make your own in a dehydrator or oven. Store bought dried fruits and jerky will work fine if you are in a hurry. I use about equal parts meat and fruit but you can adjust the amounts to your taste. I shred mine in the food processor, instead of pounding it with a rock as the Indians once did. Place the dried meat and fruit mixture along with any other ingredients you want in your pemmican in a bowl and add rendered fat until you can form a ball without it crumbling or breaking apart. Press the mixture into a glass or Pyrex dish and let sit until firm or place in the frig to speed up the firming. Cut into bars or squares and wrap. This will keep for months unless you add honey or nuts and then the shelf life is shorter.


If you do not wish to use as much fat you can also use some honey which will of course make it very sweet. I like to add honey to mine but I don't go overboard to avoid a sugar high and the later crash.


I have been asked if one could use Coconut or Palm oil instead of rendered fat and the only problem I see is those oils will melt in our Texas heat. If the trip is in the cold it would most likely work fine.

You can use lard and even add bacon drippings if you like the flavor. I prefer rendered beef fat. Just put some beef fat in a pan or a crock pot and melt the fat until you have a clear golden liquid. Do not let the fat smoke which would mean you are burning it and then it would go rancid. Strain the liquid from the solids and discard the solids, this is the fat you use to bind your pemmican ingredients.

My favorite ingredients include some pecans, walnuts, chocolate chips or M&M candies as I make mine for the food value and taste. I just buy already dried fruit like craisins, blue berries, cherries and apricots. I like it best with dried venison but lean beef will work too. I press mine into a Pyrex dish and let it get firm and then cut into bars. You can wrap in wax paper or just stack the bars and wrap with saran wrap. If I am in a hurry I just put them in a zip lock bag instead of wrapping individually but they will stick together. They will freeze or keep in the refrigerator for years. Some say you can just store them in a dark dry place but I am leery of that in Texas because of our heat.

Not only is Pemmican a great trail food there is also the coolness factor and pride of pulling out your own homemade tasty energy bar when your buddies are pealing the wrapper off of something they bought at Cabelas or REI that tastes like cardboard. Enjoy your efforts, Wild Ed