I've been a member since the late 1980's and honestly don't ever recall a bunch of "Chinese flea market" stuff? I wonder if it was an OAC show you were at, or a Collectors West commercial show? 
It was not as tightly controlled back then, so we saw some guys with wives along that put out non gun items occasionally. When the club membership declined a bit and there was a lot of commercial guns shows to compete with I was on the board, and we decided to make it a dedicated collector gun show and  tightened up the rules to state 90% of items on your tables had to be guns or edged weapons. That turned out to be our saving grace as the  membership doubled within about 5-6 years. We also decided to start doing the  annual two day shows and those really took off! We went from maybe 90 tables the first two years with a huge waiting list of people wanting a table, to over 200 tables. We have probably 30 museum quality displays at the two day show, and have never given out trophies or awards, yet guys still come to display their great collections!
We're pretty proud to say we're one of the finest small collector shows in the country, and we get vendors from all over the US setting up at our two day shows.

What Marlinguy left out is the often one of THE best displays are his collection of fine single shots. Not all Ballards but always premium stuff.

Expo sounds familiar. Huge place. 

bpjack wrote on Jun 22^nd, 2026 at 3:18pm:


My display this August will be Ballard rifles by custom gun makers. Schoyen, Pope, Peterson, Bremer, Zettler, etc.

bpjack wrote on Jun 16^th, 2026 at 7:15pm:

This makes 10 38-55s. Like I needed another one. Have the .32 Shilen barrel I could mount. Hmmm...

The other nine do well but I seldem use them for BR. 

Last summer won the Raton IS BR with a Barry Darr 38-55 barrel in a HW. Used the mold that came with the barrel. 

One Hepburn 38-55 shot a 245-7 muzzle loaded and duplex loads and iron sights. 15 1/2 twist is new to me. The Hepburn ML is 19 twist. 38-55s are wonderful for BP Schuetzen. 

I've got several other molds that fit this new barrel yet to try. The conditions were terrible yesterday. Had to shim one side of the rear sight base .008 to get it straightened up when I got home. Also was using an old Ideal micrometer powder measure I had not used before. Yes, I have all sorts of excuses but it will all come together eventually. Not sure I ever saw a pointed Darr bullet before.
Below is one of last summers Raton targets. 38-55 are accurate.

Thanks for the picture. Very nice rifle The bench could be a little more solid though.

Quote:


That's what I was told when I ordered it. I near got to try it as, I never had a 38/55 with a modern groove size.