>As for synthetics, I have not had one good experience with the stuff. It >does not work as well as quality Buckskin. IMHO And, it doesn't seem to have >the life span of good Buckskin. Again, IMHO. Joe, This is interesting, to me at least. I've determined after the fact that I've had considerable experience with synthetics for some time without realizing they were synthetics. The stuff that craps out and self destructs isn't much of a challenge to evaluate (QED, ipso facto, junkus inescapus), but what about the stuff that doesn't render down to a pugnacious goo or petrify when exposed to life outside the lab? How does the stuff that works relate to buckskin? Given the uncertainty of identifying anything demonstrably functional as bogus, I can only wonder how someone can not have had a good experience with synthetics, whether he knew it or not. It's the old "can't prove a negative" thing. I've examined synthetic "buckskin" and compared it against a few different flavors of the real thing, and I find it pretty tough (IE unlikely) to tell the difference by looks, feel, and up to 100x magnification. Then again, let me amend that. The biggest difference I can determine short of chemistry (at which I am hopelessly inept) is the more uniform thickness and consistency of the synthetic material. I, personally, can't tell the difference in function in an action. That may just be cumulative low life Philistine genes manifesting themselves in a perception deficit, but that's what I have to work with, so I try to make the best of it. This isn't really going anywhere other than to question the binary good/bad, Yin/Yang, black/white, George/Gracie attitude of real (ranging from garbage to wonderful) buckskin vs synthetic (ranging from garbage to wonderful) buckskin. Seems to me there is considerable overlap on a performance scale. Ron N
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