> It's not just woodworking.  ANY hobby that is equipment-intensive will
> break down into tribes along a spectrum  from those who believe that
> there is a sacred set of things that are required and everything else
> is worthless trash...

Ain't it the truth.  I like guns and shooting.  When I was in high 
school,
I read every gun magazine I could lay my hands on, and they began to 
look
just like this.  They had to be really light weight.  I began to wonder 
about
this idea, since I was carrying, among other rifles, an arsenal 
converted to
.22 caliber WW I vintage Enfield.  I wandered over the hills all day, 
even in
Bakersfield summers carrying that gun and had no problems doing so -- 
even
though I weighed in at 125 pounds. The rifle weighs over 10 pounds.  
Shoots
really straight.

"You can't expect to get the job done on deer with anything less than a 
.308.
News to me.  My current deer rifle is a Winchester '73 in .44/40.  "But 
that
won't work on anything over 100 yards."  News flash: The mountains where 
I
hunt you can't see a hundred yards away.  Last deer I took was around 50 
feet
away.

Mike in Sacto