Other Hobbies

[dgrant]

15 hours ago, k6ccc said:

My primary other hobby is ham radio.  I also do some casual target shooting.  Biggest gun is a .444 Marlin, but my pride and joy is a Remington XP-100 bolt action pistol.

And I still have and like my Infinity Reference Studio  Monitors.

 

 

23 hours ago, Kapkirk said:

And just like a boat, the initial purchase was actually the cheapest part, hey its also just like this one too, one controller is always followed by another and one decoration is followed by another. I just now figured why the wife wants me to go back to shooting, maybe cheaper is what she hopes LOL.

 

And the feeling you get when you put a 750 grain bullet on target at 1000 yards is great, we all call it the 50 BMG grin, the first shot from a fifty for a new 50 shooter, their usually hooked by the one shot. And again like this addiction, the grin when the kids see your display whether the first or last time is also priceless. I'm beginning to see a pattern here.

My .378WM and the .375H&H are heavy shooters and physically hurt to fire but doable. Yes, I really want to shoot a 50 at 1000 yards. Oh and Jim, I too have an XP100 in .221 Fireball. I love that 3 foot muzzle flash!

[Orville]

O and G Gauge Model trains.  Of course my cats {14 of them currently, 8 are mine, 5 are our former roommates that we're keeping for them as a temporary measure.  They help out with the cat toys, treats, food and other supplies as well as a little cahs for keeping them, so it's all good.  Although 14 cats does get very hectic at times!🤣🤣🤣

And then also creating videos using software to make the kitties sing songs for fun.   If I ever get a projector, may incorporate some of those singing cat videos into my displays.

[Kapkirk]

2 hours ago, dgrant said:

 

My .378WM and the .375H&H are heavy shooters and physically hurt to fire but doable. Yes, I really want to shoot a 50 at 1000 yards. Oh and Jim, I too have an XP100 in .221 Fireball. I love that 3 foot muzzle flash!

Yes i know about that recoil, my first BMG was a Serbu manufactured right here in Florida, but after a bunch of bruised shoulders I traded it to my buddy for a S/W 500 and some cash. I then got the Armalite AR 50 I have now and it is a pleasure to shoot. The weight and super efficient muzzle break make it feel more like a 243, and it is very accurate if I do my part.

 

Trip to Manatee 1000 yard range with my buddy we shot all day, I fired 140 rounds through my AR-50 and didn't feel a thing, Greg fired 30 rounds through his Serbu and was sore as heck. Now my pocket book was sore but not my shoulder LOL.

 

After the Serbu and age I have become a recoil less kinda guy, I really like the 6MM BR, accurate to 1000 yards and like a 22 in recoil. Ammo is a lot less too than the BMG rounds, probably less than $1 for the 6MM versus $7 for the BMG. And that price is loading your own, match type ammo would be higher.

[Little_b]

I also do model trains. I have quite a bit of G Scale that goes up all the house at Christmas time, and I have a dedicated bedroom in the basement for my N Scale layout.

[dgrant]

9 hours ago, Kapkirk said:

Yes i know about that recoil, my first BMG was a Serbu manufactured right here in Florida, but after a bunch of bruised shoulders I traded it to my buddy for a S/W 500 and some cash. I then got the Armalite AR 50 I have now and it is a pleasure to shoot. The weight and super efficient muzzle break make it feel more like a 243, and it is very accurate if I do my part.

 

Trip to Manatee 1000 yard range with my buddy we shot all day, I fired 140 rounds through my AR-50 and didn't feel a thing, Greg fired 30 rounds through his Serbu and was sore as heck. Now my pocket book was sore but not my shoulder LOL.

 

After the Serbu and age I have become a recoil less kinda guy, I really like the 6MM BR, accurate to 1000 yards and like a 22 in recoil. Ammo is a lot less too than the BMG rounds, probably less than $1 for the 6MM versus $7 for the BMG. And that price is loading your own, match type ammo would be higher.

I’ve got several nice weapons but my favorite is a Weatherby Lazermark in .22-250. Super accurate too! Also have a Weatherby Mk5 in .270WM but it too is a bruiser. 

[dgrant]

9 hours ago, Orville said:

O and G Gauge Model trains.  Of course my cats {14 of them currently, 8 are mine, 5 are our former roommates that we're keeping for them as a temporary measure.  They help out with the cat toys, treats, food and other supplies as well as a little cahs for keeping them, so it's all good.  Although 14 cats does get very hectic at times!🤣🤣🤣

And then also creating videos using software to make the kitties sing songs for fun.   If I ever get a projector, may incorporate some of those singing cat videos into my displays.

I wanted to get into trains at one time. G scale are the large ones, I think. Lol, sorry but I don’t know everything. Once, back in the ‘80’s, I was in Hamley’s toy store in London. There I found a train set in the large scale, but it was real steam! At the time, it was £50 and my being in the USAF, I wasn’t rich enough to buy it. Never found another ever since either. 

[k6ccc]

14 hours ago, dgrant said:

 

Oh and Jim, I too have an XP100 in .221 Fireball. I love that 3 foot muzzle flash!

Mine is in 7mm Bench Rest.  Fun gun to shoot.  I have a 2.5x scope on it.

 

[Dennis Laff]

I have a 4 lane 1/32 slotcar track that I built  its all digital  track is 30 ft long and 10ft wide made out of 1/2 mdf and routed slots with braid.  also just finishing HO scale dragstrip that is 30 ft long . ive had a slotcar track since I was 15 years old now I'm 70

Edited August 6, 2019 by Dennis Laff

[dgrant]

8 hours ago, k6ccc said:

Mine is in 7mm Bench Rest.  Fun gun to shoot.  I have a 2.5x scope on it.

 

Mine is scoped as well plus long ago, I had a extension bolt release added to it along with a really nice wood stock. Still a pleasure to shoot.

[dgrant]

7 hours ago, Dennis Laff said:

I have a 4 lane 1/32 slotcar track that I built  its all digital  track is 30 ft long and 10ft wide made out of 1/2 mdf and routed slots with braid.  also just finishing HO scale dragstrip that is 30 ft long . ive had a slotcar track since I was 15 years old now I'm 70

I remember the days of slot car tracks that opened as businesses. I actually had a car back then but truly I can't remember what it was now. I think it was back in the 60's.

[ebrown1972]

I have a 95 mustang with a 331 stroker that is set up for the drag strip that I race on occasion. I tinker with it quite a bit. I have played with the car so much this year that I have just started working on my lights. So I am behind on the light game and need to get working.

[Orville]

1 hour ago, dgrant said:

I remember the days of slot car tracks that opened as businesses. I actually had a car back then but truly I can't remember what it was now. I think it was back in the 60's.

Yep, they were around in the 1960's and they disappeared in Florida sometime in the late 1970's when I was in Sr. High School.

[Orville]

13 hours ago, dgrant said:

I wanted to get into trains at one time. G scale are the large ones, I think. Lol, sorry but I don’t know everything. Once, back in the ‘80’s, I was in Hamley’s toy store in London. There I found a train set in the large scale, but it was real steam! At the time, it was £50 and my being in the USAF, I wasn’t rich enough to buy it. Never found another ever since either. 

If you look up G or Large Scale Live Steamers you can still find them.  There are still a few companies around that still make and sell them.  Yes, they are expensive.  G = Garden Railroad and usually requires two hands to put most locomotives on the track depending on type and size, some can be put on the rails with one hand.

Then they have other even larger scales that you can actually ride on, some are still a bit too small for riding on, but those ride ones, if I ever could have gotten a nice 20-30 acres of property, I would have built a ride on train around the property.  Much more fun riding them than just watching then roll along the tracks!  But the ride ons are really expensive, probably around 10 times the price of the Garden Railroad variety.   Looked at them once and think for what I would have wanted, would have cost me at the time {probably a lot more expensive now} around 1.5 million dollars.  Definitely was out of my price range. 

Long before I knew about LOR and the computerized Light Show stuff.  If I'd know about LOR and what they have today {RGB lighting and Controllers} back then, it would have been a vety difficult decision to split the cost for BOTH those hobbies.

Before I went legally blind, used to build my own signals and trackside control circuitry for my trains, and could repair my own LOR Controllers and lights when needed.  Just can't do that today with my vision issues.  It's even a challenge just to do a sequence for my displays now, as well as get them up.  Somehow I do manage to do sequences and get a display up, but takes me longer than the average person, especially since my display is actually quite small.

Edited August 6, 2019 by Orville
Lowercase i needed to be changed to an uppercase I in a sentence.

[rcktpwrd]

Cars and trucks and hockey.

I spend a good bit of time working on my wife's 454SS pickup that is heavily modified. Been working on her 'new' car a bunch, it's a 1995 Caprice wagon that is now her daily driver. One day I will get back to working on my 1976 Olds Cutlass S... We attend a bunch of car/truck show and events up and down the East Coast. We did the Hot Rod Power Tour in June. Just got back from the Truck Nationals in Carlisle, Pa this weekend.

We also share season tickets to the Carolina Hurricanes.

[Randy Martin]

Race cars and hockey

I used to race and build my own race cars usually 1974 Nova. I have gotten away from it now but my new hobby is working on my two kids two 1/2 scale Junior Late Model race cars and officially the taxi for hockey my daughter in competitive seems like all year and my son local league. But I love it and then some how I still get tens of thousands of lights up each year controlled by LOR.

[PCRail]

G-scale garden railroading. At this point the outdoor layout includes hundreds of tiny LED's (mostly 3mm), smart pixel strips, and dumb pixel props and runs lighting sequences every night using a G3 Director, Easy Links, and LOR conrollers. The train system is digital with a Marklin Central Station 3 controlling things. Here's a link to a long video which I actually use to keep a history of the evolution of the layout over a period of 25 years, so I try to cover the whole thing. Apparently, there are other people who combine the two hobbies - lighting and toy trains. It doesn't get any better than this .

Richard

 

[orchidman]

Remind me to never go to Pinecrest.  It's dangerous.  There was no engineer in the locomotive that I could see.   🤓  👍

You have done a great job.

[Orville]

1 hour ago, PCRail said:

G-scale garden railroading. At this point the outdoor layout includes hundreds of tiny LED's (mostly 3mm), smart pixel strips, and dumb pixel props and runs lighting sequences every night using a G3 Director, Easy Links, and LOR conrollers. The train system is digital with a Marklin Central Station 3 controlling things. Here's a link to a long video which I actually use to keep a history of the evolution of the layout over a period of 25 years, so I try to cover the whole thing. Apparently, there are other people who combine the two hobbies - lighting and toy trains. It doesn't get any better than this .

Richard

 

Beautiful layout Richard.   Wish I had the space for one that large.  But why no Engineer or Conductor in the Loco?  All my G loco's {USA Trains, LGB, Kalamazoo and Aristo-Craft} all had them already installed in them.  All bought brand new and had just an Engineer or both Engineer and Conductor factory installed.

BTW: have any night time video of your railroad setup?  Would love to see how it looks after dark.

Edited August 7, 2019 by Orville

[aja1216]

I fly RC Helicopters and RC Planes. 🛩️ 🚁

LOR is a new hobby I'm looking to get into.

[Kapkirk]

19 minutes ago, aja1216 said:

I fly RC Helicopters and RC Planes. 🛩️ 🚁

LOR is a new hobby I'm looking to get into.

Yep, I had that affliction too, about 20 years ago, started with a Sig Kadet with a OS .40, a bunch RC planes later I was a lot quarter scale, even bought a trailer to go from meet to meet and transport. Then when the boys left the house I transformed into long range shooting. I still have a bunch of leftovers, a 4 Star 120 with a OS 120 and a couple combat gremlins. they haven't flown in quite a while. I gave away or sold the majority but kept  the 4 star cause of how easy and well it flew.

 

My wife says I'm a 10 year hobby guy and I think she is actually counting the Light O Rama times to see when I move to my next hobby, If I had a basement I always liked model trains and would seriously consider that, but in Florida no basement so I was thinking of migrating back to one of the old ones. Unless the wife gets her way and we move to Tennessee then that will be the course.