Happy 50th birthday, Steve!

 My son Steve, seen here with his mother Diane in April, 1971, is 50 years old today.

It seems impossible that both of my sons are in their 50s, but me being 75 seems odd too.

When dad was less than half my age

Going through an old scrapbook the other day, I found this photo of my dad in the 1940s - he would have been in his early 30s - on the Carroll County Courthouse square in Delphi.

Kind of startling to see him downtown without a coat and tie.

Using a bore sighter to adjust my Combat Commander's laser grips

When I bought a set of Crimson Trace Laser Grips for my Colt Combat Commander 1911 a few years ago, I adjusted the laser to align with the iron sights.

It seemed to work okay and I was able to put rounds on target as far as the 50-yard length of my neighborhood shooting range, even shooting from the hip.

Even so, when the Amazon Vine Program offered me a laser bore sighter, I jumped on it.

The device comes with two sets of three batteries. You unscrew the back of the .45 caliber-size bore sighter, insert three batteries and screw it back on. This turns on the laser. Insert it into the chamber of your gun and, voila, you can see precisely where the bullet would impact, distance and wind notwithstanding.

I found the Crimson Trace laser was off by about 3-4 inches at 20 feet - not terrible, but not perfect either.

Then came the hard part - finding the original Crimson Trace box containing the tiny Allen wrenches used to adjust the sight. I hunted high and low for about 20 minutes before I finally located it.

It was a simple matter of dialing in the Crimson Trace laser so it was in synch with the bore sighter's red dot.

Now I am reasonably confident that my laser grip is spot-on. Of course, the proof will be in the shooting, but I'm impressed that my original seat-of-the-pants setting was so close to perfect, considering that the iron sights are ever-so-slightly off.

Isle Royale sunrise

My sons, Sean and Steve, were up with the sun for our first day of hiking and camping at Isle Royale National Park in late June, 1976.