Did you go shooting today (Pic thread)

[mountaineer1673]

wife and kids are away for a few days... took my other kids to the range today. bit windy but was a good day...

[bamboomaster]

The Missus and I went to the New Holland range today to dial in our Ruger Old Army 45's since we have a BP shoot coming up next week.

Last year, she blew away everyone (including me, and not for the first time) but I might have a chance of coming in 2nd on some events this year. The match is 8 matches (no running, crawling through drain tubes, walking across bridges while you're engaging targets, and all that other stuff that sounds like fun on a playground where you get to carry guns) with five shots per match.

Perfect for folks in a wheel chair - but I'm not there yet and hopefully will never be.

The stainless Ruger is hers, the beat-up blued one is mine - but in my defense, I bought it that condition at a really good price years ago - both are extremely great shooters.

We use Hornady .457 round balls in lots of 500 and sort them by weight - helps with uniformity in your load.

She uses 15.8 gns 3F Goex and Rem #11 percussion caps. Mostly because her flask pours that measured amount.

I use 21.0 gns 3F Goex and the slightly smaller Rem #10 percussion caps because my flask pours that amount (we're not rocket scientists ya'know?). FWIW, even though the #10's are recommended in the user's manual, they tend to split after being fired and sometimes interfere with cocking the hammer because particles get stuck in all kinds of places.

We also use "Quaker" brand corn meal on top of the powder (probably not the same guys who make the motor oil) for a filler up to about 1/8" from the top of the cylinder before we seat the ball and compress everything (bullet & filler) for a single chamber. FWIW, if whatever you put into your cylinder isn't compressed on the BP, you're gonna have a problem - accuracy and possibly other issues.

After the bullets are seated, we place a dab of "Bore Butter" over the top of each chamber. Some say to do it to avoid a chain reaction where all cylinders ignite as one - but I think that doubtful since we're using .457 bullets, and there's always a slight shaving of the bullets as you seat them. You'd need a good deal more than a titanium crowbar to get a spark through that chamber.

I have no idea how a "spark" could penetrate a cylinder after a bullet so tightly seated, and then work its way through all the cornmeal media to get to the powder. But the lube does indeed lubricate the barrel and makes it happier for follow-on bullets?

The weather was great, so we took our time shooting at 22 yds - which is the match distance we'll be shooting at the upcoming BP pistol shoot.

Damn! Those targets look really small at this distance. And this isn't one of our Wilson Combat's. Just remember, "Aim small, miss small"...

For those who don't already know, the Ruger Old Army black powder revolver (with adjustable rear sights for windage and elevation) are IMO the most accurate BP pistols around.


Double Trouble Web.jpg

[27hand]

It's been a few days but I shot Sat, Sun and Mon in a Randy Cain class.

Some of the best instruction I've ever had. It focused on the fundamentals.
The only pics I have are of other shooters and they may or may not be in the witness protection program so won't post up

[27hand]

I went to a retirement dinner last night.
While there, the guy that did my concrete work said he was wanting to ask me to review how to run his Glock 19.
Since the dinner was over at 630 and the range was only a few miles away, i asked if he wanted to go now.
He didn't have his pistol but I just happened to have mine.
We went over the 4 safety rules which I asked him repeatedly while going over trigger manipulation to reset, follow through, sight alignment and sight picture, magazine indexing for loading, proper way to grasp the slide without covering the ejection port, chamber checking without covering his hand.
He did well with a few instances of finger in the trigger guard and pulling through th trigger too quickly.
Finally got him to slowly press through, holding the trigger to the rear while reacquiring a second sight picture and allowing the trigger to go no further than the reset position.
I fired 5 rounds. He fired the rest.
It was a great day at the range.
His homework was dryfire with no ammunition around after verifying the gun was clear and memorizing the 4 safety rules.

[bamboomaster]

Well, the missus and I just returned from our Black Powder pistol shoot with our Ruger Old Army pistols. The weather was great (it wasn't raining for once) and while the temp got up to a "temperate" 86 degrees, we were mostly shaded during the event and nobody suffered anything close to heat prostration.

There were seven matches, some five rounds, some six rounds, all at 22 yds.

The thing about shooting black powder isn't always about the score....although there are jibes tossed in good nature if the score especially for your first target sucks - like mine did.

If these are folks you shot with for 15-20 years, you learn a lot about history - like who's mother-in-law fell and broke a hip. But then experienced folks will interject and say "The hip broke first, and then she fell". I'm pretty sure most of you have never imagined that one part of your body structure could actually fail - and then you fall. Apparently the docs have it all wrong...

While you never know what you need to bring to a BP shoot, I've always brought one of those items that you can stick a CO2 cylinder in, and depending on the size of the hole, blow in some compressed air that will readily eject the miscreant round from your barrel. It's because THAT happened to me a long time ago. Another shooter stepped in to rescue me. I just wanted to be ready to help someone else. One of the shooters on the line today had the same problem with his pistol but I went to the car, got my emergency "tackle box", and blew out his miscreant round.

While some folks compared the height of grass in their yard (and even promised to cut it on Sunday), another said his is only 12" tall, and so far, nobody has yet complained.

These are folks who have no problem tearing apart a Harley or an Indian and making it road-worthy. There was even another who was cutting his bullets in half (with hammer and sharpened piece of steel) because he shared a ride with his dad and left most of his bullets in his vehicle. Thankfully, he brought along a hammer and a good blade. But I had a better hammer in my vehicle for knocking out windows if you ever find yourself in an uncomfortable situation, and just let him know if he needed some muscle, this would do the job.

I was thankful that at the end of the shoot, he walked over and returned it.

Yeah, his groups sucked because the bullets he used looked like over-sized kidney stones - but only for today. His uncle told him long ago "If you can put it down the barrel, it will shoot" and he's remembered that personal lesson.

The matches today at this range were handicapped - if you're 1st place on the first match, 3 points are automatically deducted from your raw score on the next match. 2nd place, a two point deduction from your raw score in the next match, and 3rd place, a one point deduction from your raw score in the next match. This handicapping makes the event more user friendly for folks who show up to participate and hope they can go home with some version of a prize.

This handicapping started about 30 years ago when a shooter nick-named "Rotten Ralph" came to the monthly shoots and routinely took first place IN ALL OF THE MATCHES. For years. There was just no way to beat him, so the handicap formula was instituted. Rotten Ralph has passed, but we still speak of him in fond (and not so fond) memory.

The better you shoot, the higher your handicap gets during the day. I finished the shoot with a handicap of 16 - which means that if a shooter shot a score of 25 in the last match and I shot a 40 in raw score, due to the handicap (40 raw score-16 cumulative handicap=24 adjusted score) I would have officially scored lower for this match.

So, in 7 different "handicapped" matches, we took home the following "places" (the more you placed, the more the handicap for your score was working against you):

1st places: 4 prizes - chicken
2nd places: 5 prizes - bacon
3rd places: 1 prize - Polish turkey sausage
4th place: 2 prizes - can of beans

I know it may sound "socialist" to some, but just to make things a little better for everyone who took the time to attend this event and certainly added to the fun quotient of the day, we traded away two of the chickens and one of the bacon packages for three additional cans of beans.

While we shot at many targets, here's the best "JUG" target of the day:

Bottle Target - 22 yds - web.jpg

Bottle necks were scored as a 10, large parts of bottle were scored as a 5, and if you nicked the neck - you got a 7, if you nicked the lower part of the bottle, you scored a 3.

It was just so very cool to shoot with folks who are the top tier in gun safety, left their egos in the yard back home, and just hammered things down-range. Did I forget to mention that most of these folks know how to build their own BP rifles and pistols? Sorta like the recent "Ken Doll" fad of building your own AR

BP shooting is indeed a lot of fun - especially when you get the opportunity to teach younger folks (think kids, grandkids, etc.). And five hours of match shooting only took 42 bullets - talk about affordable ammo....

[arrrrgh15]

Long range shooting yesterday.

[bamboomaster]

[QUOTE=arrrrgh15;3575955]

Long range shooting yesterday.[/QUOTE

Nice set-up. Ummm, and where's the rest of the team?

[Steve32]

[R L Suehr]

Went with dad today. I was on a 9mm kick today. Took the beretta, tristar, and my firestar. Also tried to zero my dissipator build and it was giving light primer strikes. Gonna have to figure that one out, maybe to light on the hammer spring.

[hunterdan]

Felt that since it was America's birthday, there was no better way to celebrate than to go shooting with my buddy. I recently picked up a Marlin 1895g in 45-70, and outfitted my savage axis with a new vortex scope, so they came along as well as my savage b-mag. For some reason shooting a lever action 45-70 just seemed right today. Anyway, was my first time shooting this caliber. Was an absolute blast to shoot, though my shoulder is a little tender tonight. The new vortex glass isn't too shabby either. Next up, new glass for the b-mag. My cheap 4-12x Simmons just doesn't compare to the vortex or the Leupold I had mounted on my Marlin. The scope will be coming off the Marlin in a few days and will be replaced by a Williams fire peep setup. And now to find some cheapish 45-70 ammo.