Studied the MEC site. Think the Jr. 500 looks like the ticket. Eveyone suggests that I go to the MEC and of course I've seen them around for decades. I will probably look at the Lee Loader Load All too, just for the heck of it.

My Lefever is a light barreled gun too, but not damascus. I think it'd be better to shoot lighter loads in her too.

I am drawn to the beauty and balace of the damascus GH. While not light as a feather she comes up great and balances well. She needs to be shot, and frankly I'm looking forward to the other shooters' comments.

I believe the more a person is around Parkers and Parker damascus barrels, the more he will learn ( even a Marine) to appreciate and trust these barrels. I'll take a damascus gun over fluid steel.

I am looking forward to my experiments shooting my new GH made in 1895. I have been shooting a damascus muzzle loader, which is really a twist barrel for half a century, but not that much and not for a long time. Had it inspected however and it received a full bill of health.

I suppose some kinds of twist barrels are better than others, and as I study this I find that there are several (many?) different kinds of bar and weld barrels wrapped around a mandrel. I assume that the "fine damascus" barrels advertised by Parker are the best and therefore the strongest.

Huh? We never said we were smart. No smart person would put up with what we put up with. Lousy chow, lived in holes in the ground, got rained on, didn't sleep for days on end, were issued old worn out army gear and stayed nose to nose with the enemy and then chewed his head off. Fresh meat. When we got to town we got drunk, got into fights with squids and dogfaces and after a few weeks had to visit the doctor.

Nope, not smart at all. It didn't matter. Just ask the bad guys...those few who survived that is.

Get the MEC and don't look back. They don't wear out and parts are readily available. $50 to $60 bucks tops with shipping is what I'd look for. Once you buy it figure out what you need for bars and bushings and order them from MEC.

http://www.mecreloaders.com/

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mec-600-jr-s...item45fd5ec8f2

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MEC-600-Jr-1...item19c91c62e0

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mec-600-Jr-1...item19c91c7144

There has been no evidence, historical or contemporary, that suggests that any Parker composite barrel type is stronger than any other, nor any evidence that suggests that any Parker fluid steel type is stronger than any other.

All barrels used by Parker were the strongest available of their day.

"Best" is a subjective term. Some types are prettier than others to some people and some have been demonstrated to finish finer than others.

I have used Mec press's for years and currently load 12,16,&20 all 2 1/2 low pressure using a Mec sizemaster. IF you are going to load the shorter shell there is a "short kit" you will need also. I have a friend who was reloading paper hulls all 2 3/4 but they didn't reload very well. The are nice to hunt with esp when roll crimped. theres something nostalgic about being afield with a damascuss 0 frame 16 and roll crimped paper hulls.

Brian Erickson at New Era Ammunition is doing some work using a 2 inch roll crimped 16 paper shell. These are really cool. Basically its a 28ga load in a 16ga hull. Great on grouse, Woodcock and Quail:bowdown:

I'm going to wait to buy the MEC after I get my GH. Maybe in a week or two. I live in two homes, a cabin along a little river in central Oregon and a house in town, where we cocoon during the winter. That's where my guns are. Am working on a book and plan to spend time attending gun shows, and messing with my gun collection. They are my old friends you know. Am looking forward to hitting the computer to start writing.

Winter is a long time however, especially when football season ends. Then it's reloading time and shooting clays time.

Steve, Sounds like you have a plan! What will your book be about may I ask?

I thought you'd never ask! Now, prepare yourself; my story is strange. As a preface one must understand that I was raised not far from Dodge City, Kansas where in my youth the bird hunting was out of this world. The sky was black with bob white quail, pheasants, dove and ducks gallore. I hunted with my dad and his dad and about a dozen uncles. We knew everyone in town and in the "country" and could hunt about any place that we wanted to. In short, it was a little slice of Heaven. A corner in the living room was always stacked with shotguns. Around the dinner table the topic of conversation was the wheat, cattle and hog prices, hunting and tales of the Old West. My family you see were there.

My imagination took off as I walked the streets of Dodge, or Mead or Bucklin and in the hollows alongside stream beds where a dugout had been. One could find rusted tin cans with soldered seams, lengths of flattened stove pipe, a half buried potbelly stove, the head of a rake. There was always a long dead but towering silver trunked cottonwood, it's twisted limbs casting ghostly shadows over where the dugout and its human contents had lived.

After college I went to the Marine Corps, after that I became a history teacher. I became a fan and avid student of the Old West, but I always had been. I traveled to all of the places where Wyatt Earp and George Custer had traveled. I studied Billy the Kid, whose last name is the same as mine. I went to Lincoln where the kid escaped from jail and murdered his jailors, the building still looms over the one main street in town and is little changed, neither is the town. I read the books on the subject and studied the illustrations.

Just after Christmas, 2006 my wife gave me a direct order to get a haircut. I drove to town, but the barbershop was full with no seats. I backed outside. To avoid an artic wind I stepped into to a little antique shop. I saw a display of tintypes. I picked one up and was introduced to a young man who looked just like my grandfather when he was of a similar age. The boy was Billy the Kid. I found sixty pictures that included some of his fellow "Regulators", a few of his enemies, and Sallie Chisum's entire family. Sallie Chisum, who must have gathered the collection, of course danced with the kid. Her uncle was the wealthiest man about. The pictures have never been seen before and are mostly like new. Eventually I found Sallie's living relatives who live not far from me. They had sold the pictures after an attic scouring event, not knowing who they were of. I do.

That is my story.

I'll post a few of them. If anyone out there is a student of the Lincoln County War or has an interest in Billy the Kid or his pals and would like to see a picture of a specific person just ask and if I have it, I'll put it up. I have many photos of people who do not have other pictures of them to match mine to, but never mind, there is other evidence to their identities and often written descriptions that show that my tintype is authentic.

Steve