Last Trip to Obrisky's

Several months ago, I wrote about a day trip that my brother I and  took that included a stop at Obrisky's Books in Micanopy.   Mr. Obrisky died a few weeks ago and the store is going to stay open long enough to liquidate the fifty-five thousand books that he had accumulated.  We went back this past weekend for one last look at the place.

Obrisky always had a few books on reloading, gunsmithing and hunting and I wanted to see what might be there this time.  I found a few things that were sort of interesting but nothing that really jumped out at me.   One of the sort of interesting books was called Principles and Practice of Loading Ammunition and was written by Earl Naramore.    Its a Stackpole Book and I think the last printing was in 1962.

I was thinking that I have enough books on reloading and didn't really need another book on the basics but as I stood there leafing through the pages while water dripped through the roof, it began to dawn on me that this book is a lot more than that.

The book runs nine hundred pages and explores bullet casting, different types of reloading tools, different types of cases, bullets and primers.   Just about anything you care to look into is addressed.   Mr. Naramore spends a lot of time on choosing the right cases and even gets into the grain structure of the brass from which the cases are made.   There's sections on different general types of powders and write ups on some of the popular powders of his day.   There's a pretty detailed section on how to work up loads when you don't know what powder you have, when you know the powder and have data but want to use a different bullet, know the powder but have no data (this was way before Al Gore thought up the innernet)  and so on.  There's a section that looks like load data but what looks like the powder charge is called a Reference Number.  Depending on what problem you need to solve (no data, unknown powder etc), you use a different percentage of the Reference Number as your starting load.

I found it interesting that there's data, I mean reference numbers, for things like the .303 Savage with several powders but nothing for the 9mm Luger.  I suspect that there just wasn't enough interest in reloading the 9mm back in the 1950s and early 1960s to warrant including in in the book.   Times do change.

Amazon has the same book for $57.00 and shipping is another $4.00.  Mine cost $40.00.  I don't have the dust jacket but the book is in great shape. 

After the book store, we went to Gainesville to spectate at a Studebaker Avanti show.

The Avanti was a fiberglass, 2 door coupe built by Studebaker from 1962 - 1964.   The concept is similar in some ways to the Corvette but also to the Mustang, Camaro and Firebird that came later.   After Studebaker quit building cars, the Avanti lived on as small manufacturer that essentially built Avanti bodies and put them on GM chassis.  That lasted until the mid to late 1980s.

I prefer the pure-blooded Studebaker ones.   The stock, "R1" engine was a 289 DID V8 that put out 240 hp.  A nice, supercharged 289 CID "R2" version making about 1hp per cubic inch was certainly nimble enough.  And no, that wasn't Ford's 289.  Studebaker's predated Ford's by several years and was a fairly massive engine.  I have read that it had more main bearing area than a big block Chevy.

Late in production they punched the 289 out to 305 (well, 304.5) CID, put the carburetor in a pressure box and churned out 335 hp. That was called the R3 engine.  The R4 had dual quads and there was an experimental R5 of the same size but with two superchargers - one for each bank.  It developed either 575 or 638 hp depending on which source you believe.  It broke some serious speed records at Bonneville.

R3 Engine.

There was also an interesting Studebaker hybrid car at the show.  Studebaker did build electric cars in the early 1900s but this wasn't that kind of hybrid.  It was a 1952 Commander 2 door hard top.   The 2 door hard top was only built on the 1947-1952 body in 1952.   This one has a bullet nose from a 1950 and the front fenders and grille are from a 1951.  I suppose that it was wrecked at one time and finding a front clip for a 1952 Commander proved impossible so they put it back together with 1951 and 1950 parts.  It looks flawless and it cranked up and ran great.

On the way to the car show we discovered a new Bubba Que's restaurant on NW 39th Boulevard in Gainesville.

No two Bubba Que's seem to be exactly alike but the decor and food never fail to impress.