Extract from 'Rifle Magazine, #215, September 2004, John Barsness.
- You've seriously debated the difference between the .270 Winchester and .280 Remington and ended up owning both.
- If the only thing better than the latest, newest 'in-rifle' is a really old rifle.
- You spend serious money buying rifles you once owned as a kid.
- When cleaning out your shaving kit for the same trip, you discover an ejector assembly for a 98 Mauser.
- You reach in your pocket for change and amid the dimes and quarters find a recovered bullet from a bull elk.
- Somebody asks for a good 7X57 load and you can recite every one you've ever used.
- Your rifle safe is like Heaven: There's always room for one more.
- You buy 1000 rounds of brass at a gun show and have to buy a rifle to use it.
- While hunting groundhogs in North Carolina you want to plug the ballistic data from your rifle into your laptop. However you don't remember the ballistic coefficient of the bullet so you call a friend in the Rockies who always has such information at his fingertips. He does. (You're BOTH rifle loonies).
- Your local firearms emporium has your number on speed-dial.
- The heavy barreled .223 Rem you bought last year will average five shots in 0.35 inch at 100 yards but you've decided to spend $600 rebarreling it with a Lilja hoping for better.
- The bullet selection on your loading room shelf exceeds the variety available at your local shooting emporium.
- You'd rather read a new Brownells catalog than a new Playboy. Really!
- The gun safe you bought last year is already too small.
- In your mind a foot-pound never has anything to do with rhythm.
- You buy a used barrel at a gun show for $35 and spend $850 putting together a rifle around it.
- Every centerfire in your safe is chambered for an "Ackley Improved" cartridge.
- Your favourite travel rifle is a prewar drilling chambered for 12g over 8X57R.
- You told your wife that your latest purchase was an "investment" - and either or both of you believe it.
- You take more than one centerfire on a prairie dog shoot so one can always be cooling.
- You buy a .375 H&H just in case you ever get to Africa.
- Your UPS man comes up the walk with a long box singing "Here's another one".
- You own anything at all called a 'truck gun'.
- You purchased a set of used dies at a gun show and had to build a rifle to fit them.
- You spend $15000 on a big bore double rifle and consequently can't afford to take it to Africa.