The Cure, and other Tales

As I read my calendar, it’s about two months until my fall hunting season opens with my annual sneak attack on high country blue — “dusky” or “sooty” to you purists —grouse. Later I shift to mule deer hunting and maybe this year I’ll conk a pheasant or quail with any luck.

Veteran readers of the Insider column know I’m a blue grouse fanatic. I will not submit to counseling, although my withdrawal symptoms in January are the stuff of legend. But we ain’t talking about shooting or hunting this trip. Nope, we’re talking about camping with guns — and dining, morning and evening. And for that, one is blessed if the camp stove is graced by the presence of cast-iron skillets.

Genuine cast iron skillets need to be “cured,” and this involves heating, greasing and smoking, in that order. I’ve been cooking on this hardware for a very long time and have learned that if one takes the time to care for his cookware, it is an experience not unlike being careful with his, or her handloading chores. Both must be taken seriously, else a cartridge failure or culinary disaster could befall you and ruin a $29.95 hunt on a secret few acres of public land only a few thousand other people know about.

Once you’ve cured cast iron, you never, ever wash with soap and water. That ruins the cure faster than the legislature can hike your property taxes. So on a recent sunny Sunday afternoon, I fired up the old Coleman, warmed up my three skillets, applied generous splats of Crisco and let ‘em smoke. All the while, I was running patches down the bores of my S&W and Ruger Blackhawk sixguns, so you see, I can multi-task.

The way I was taught to cure a skillet is to apply more grease when the smoke clears, let it smoke some more, and then let it cool. Store it maybe after a wipe with a towel, but otherwise leave it alone. I’ve done this and learned a couple of things:

1. Bacon grease adds to the seasoning

2. Eggs won’t stick if you cool down the pan and maybe squirt on a little vegetable or olive oil,

3. If you want a ribeye steak to die for, warm the cast iron slowly so the whole pan bottom has an even heat, add oil and when it’s ready, add the steak. In a separate pan, fry up some sliced potatoes with a few shreds of sliced onion. You may otherwise camp like a hobo, but you’ll dine like royalty.

Links to Loading

Being guilty of camping “in the rough,” I also confess to being just as careful with my cookware as I am with my reloading presses. These must be cared for to make sure they keep working reliably.

A recent episode with my vintage RCBS PiggyBack unit, mounted on an old Rockchucker single stage reminded me that these things must be cleaned, grit should be removed, the main shaft of the press can be wiped and a few drops of light lubricant helps. I clean my shell plates, and especially clean my dies by wiping them off with a cleaning patch.

The Piggyback has loaded thousands of rounds in, lemme think, five or six different calibers including one for which I have no gun, but my pal does and he’s no handloader. A person who does not take proper care of his reloading gear is begging for a disappointment.

Some years ago, I ran across some stuff called Dri Lube, and it works like a champ on the shaft of my press. One or two drops is all one requires. Never use heavy oil on a press, and use it only on some moving parts. Keep it away from powder and primers.

Good food is conducive to a good time in camp. Once the stomach is full, it is much easier to wipe down a gun, maybe oil the action or wipe the stock and fix a scratch with a temporary application of neutral shoe wax. Once some years ago, one of my companions had to make a repair to the ejector rod housing (it needed a new screw) of his single-action Ruger, and it was accomplished by the light of a blazing campfire and gas lantern — but only after chow.

It's a Gift

Being able to cook and eat well in camp is a gift. I’ve had the pleasure of eating some really good meals prepared by camp cooks who knew their stuff, and I learned from those experiences by watching. So, when I’m camping solo — probably not the smartest idea at my age, according to the missus — the presence of a cast iron pan guarantees decent cuisine.

I’ve also learned not to look the proverbial “gift horse” in the mouth so when I cleaned up a corner of my workshop and recovered three boxes containing a total of 2,000 plated .41-caliber bullets, it was time to cheer. A while back I wrote about all the .45-caliber plated bullets I discovered, and it turns out I didn’t dig around enough. Ta Da!

The flatnose bullets, from the now-defunct Rainier Ballistics, work pretty well. I’m experimenting so far with 15.5 grains of Accurate #9 behind a 220-grain plated Rainier. I need more range time as my first foray didn’t quite impress me, though I kept ‘em all in the black at 25 yards using a Model 57 Smith & Wesson with a 6-inch barrel. I found a load recommendation for the 220-grainer (‘RAIN FP’) with a low end of 14.7 grains and maximum of 16.3 grains of No. 9 ignited by a magnum primer, and I’m working upwards, probably drawing the line at 16.0 grains. That was in the 2024 Hodgdon’s Annual Manual, because the RAIN reference has disappeared in the 2025 edition, no doubt because the company has closed up shop. An exchange of emails with Chris Hodgdon pretty much confirmed my suspicion.

I still rely on my favorite 210-grain JHP either from Nosler or Sierra over 20.0 grains of H110 and a magnum large pistol primer for hunting, but the plated 210-grain pills from Rainier will provide plenty of practice shooting for a very long time.

The Last Leather

Here it is — the last holster I built, for a guy with a 6.5” Ruger Blackhawk just like mine. By no coincidence, this project took the last bit of holster leather in my workshop.

I have to say it was a heck of a run, working with leather over the past 20-plus years. This holster went to a good home, methinks. I’ve gotten some nice compliments from folks over the years, and I think leather is the best material for packing a sidearm. Others may disagree, but there’s just something about a leather holster. It gains “character” as the years go by, and it reminds us of a time when an emergency demanded a tool to be immediately available to deal with a problem.

Now I can tinker with something else. It’ll probably get me in trouble.