Melissa and I are going to Marty's bonfire tonight. We're going early and taking a couple of guns with us to celebrate the way our founding fathers would want us to: by firing hundreds of rounds of ammunition from our constitutionally-protected arms.

Have a safe and happy holiday.

UPDATE: The new pistol worked out great. I put about 50 rounds through it, and it got another 30 or so rounds from other folks.

The old rifle that I finally managed to track down a replacement tubular magazine for needs work. It had trouble reliably feeding rounds. It's off to the gunsmith for the old Winchester. Financially, I'd be better off selling it. Sentimentally, it was my first gun and I'd like to keep it.

Marty's brother Philip loaned me a Marlin Model 25 .22 magnum bolt-action rifle, which is accurate enough to drive nails with. I had never shot the gun before, and I managed to hit two inch metal swivel targets at 40-50 feet, 4 out of 5 shots, with iron sights. It's a great rifle. I offered to buy it if he ever gets tired of it, but he was too smart to take the money. See Kim Dutoit's recommendations for great .22s under $500.

The metal "shooting gallery" target was lots of fun. You shoot four metal targets which swivel up onto a bar. Shooting the fifth target above moves the bar and resets the targets. Cost for the rimfire version was about $35 at Wal-Mart. A local gunstore has a centerfire handgun version for $90.