Grab Bag

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What's in your range bag?

I've got:
A first aid kit
targets/paper plates/stickers
ear protection x 3
eye protection x 3
notebook & pen
Stapler & hammer
sand bag rests
extra mags
mag loaders for different calibers
speed loaders for the revolver
Trashbags to pick up after myself
ammo in this:

Cleaning stuff in this:

Extra towels to put my stuff on so it doesn't get all cruddinated (it's a word!)
I don't have bug spray or sunscreen in there, but there's sunscreen in the van all the time.
I also have some reactive targets that I toss in the van when I get ready to get busy.
And what's in that "chest o'fun"?
Every kind of good junk that you didn't know you couldn't live without.
Well...me, anyway.

Score and Change

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SCORE
I've been kicking around the idea of participating in a few online matches just for fun and bragging rights. Now that I have a few different rifles to pick from, it would be more fun. There's the semi-auto Marlin 60 with open sights, the bolt action CZ 452 Lux with iron sights, and the scoped bolt action Savage Mark II. Since making the purchase of those sand bags, I'd have the option of shooting from rests or the rare offhand game as well. I've also got the capability of printing off the official match targets and now there's a store that carries the right stock of paper to do it on.
Problem: I don't have a gauge to score the target, nor do I know how to.
But thanks to Joe Haller from RimfireCentral.com, I'll be figuring it out pretty quickly once I get my gauge in the mail.
CHANGE
I needed to obtain a money order to drop in the mail today to Mr. Haller, so I went to a store to get one. The total came to $6.46 and since I decided I didn't want a bunch of change and one dollar bills back, I opted to give the cashier a $10 bill, a $1 bill, and fifty cents. This way, I'd get back a $5 and four pennies.
(I'm sure you might see where this is headed)
She looked at the money for a second and started to hand the $1 bill back. I said, "No, please take it out of $11.50 so I can have a $5 bill back."
She said, "It's only $6.46, this is too much money."
Me: "Yes, I know that...but when you ring it up out of this, I'll get $5.04 back. I don't want a bunch of ones and change."
Her: "It's not going to work that way because you gave me fifty cents, too."
Me: "I know. The forty-six cents will come out of the fifty. The six dollars will come out of the eleven. I'll get a five back. Please just key it in your register."
Her: (looks at me like I'm growing an extra nose or eye)"*sigh*, OK, but it's messed up."
She rang it up and guess what! My change was $5.04. She frowned all wrinkly foreheaded at the register like it malfunctioned and then shook her head and shrugged her shoulders.
Hardest fiver I've ever gotten back in change. Ever.

Zeroing the Scope

The scope on the Savage wasn’t zeroed in, so I decided to research it to figure out how to do it.
You know what? Those little dials on the scope that move the point of impact left and right or up and down…not really dials. Those are caps over the dials. Yeah, I didn’t know that. Derrrr.
So anyway, I knew I’d need stabilization, which I didn’t have. I went to a store and bought these nifty bags. Then I decided I needed a carabiner clip to hook them together to toss them in my range bag, but all my clips were being used on key chains and such. I had to buy another one, so I might as well just get one with the letter “A”, right?? :p


I got my stuff all set up.


I took out some paper plates and put those little “Shoot n’ See” stickers on them. I love those little suckers! I’m getting some of the hot pink ones next time!


I stapled the plates to the target stand and loaded the magazine for the Savage plus the extra one I bought yesterday. I was using Federal Champion High Velocity.


When everything was ready to go, I started with aiming for the far left dot on the far left plate to start. The spousal unit measured off that it was 100ft to the stand.


I got busy getting busy.
A click to the left, a click to the left, a click to the left...


After I was bored with plugging paper I shot at some of the bits of broken clays on the berm. That was fun! There were chunks big enough to hit and make a little orange kersplat out of.


Here’s the paper plate for doing the deed.

I love John Stossel.

Something Fun!

"Do you have a good memory of an experience with a gun? When you were little, did your dad or grandpa teach you how to shoot? Or maybe your mom or grandma? Was there a time when a firearm came in handy and you rescued yourself from a bad situation? Have you fed your family when you otherwise wouldn’t have been able to, due to having this type of tool? Are you involved with passing along your firearms knowledge and shooting skill to the younger generation of upcoming shooters? Do you have an anecdote about participating in a competition? Have you won marksman ribbons? How did your experience with firearms make you feel?
What sort of story is YOUR story?
Send your fond memory to gunstory@yahoo.com with the subject titled "Gun Story".
*All content submitted becomes property of gunstory(at)yahoo.com."

A Very Savage Post

The search for MiniMe’s .22 rifle has ended.
A fellow Hoosier shooter contacted me about selling his rifle. He sent some information about it and we said we’d try it out.
JL had to work today and was passing through the town where he could pick it up. We decided to give him the money for it when we took the rifle, so if MiniMe liked it, the transaction would be over. If not, we’d swap back in a few days.
She liked it. :-D

She and I took our safety stuff and this Savage Mark II over to the range with a few paper plates with stickers on them that I stapled to the stand in front of the berm.

The scope that was on it wasn’t zeroed in, and I don’t know how to do that, but I’ll be looking it up and figuring it out.
We don't have a portable bench rest so the shots were all from standing/off hand from about 45-55 feet away.
I took the first five shots at the orange middle sticker and one black Shoot N’ See sticker. She took two more at that plate and the next one at broken clays that were scattered around the berm. She hit them almost every time and got a big kick out of doing so. There was green plastic bottle on the mound and she decided that needed aerated as well. So she aerated it all the way to the bottom…and all the way across from left to right.
All in all it was a huge hit and there’s no way she was about to say she wouldn’t like to keep it.
We didn’t shoot quite 100…but just under that, and had 3 failures to extract out of all. Could have been the ammo, could have been something I don’t know about, but we’ll figure that out too.
We hope it likes its new home, taking up the last spot on the right;

She's a baseball cap type girl and she loves things that are shades of pink.
Gotta get her the hat...

On a side note, I was kind of bummed to see that the stand was broken at the base. It had to be deliberate and it had to be extremely fresh. Whoever broke it had to be trying hard because it’s a bolted 4x4 across the bottom and it looked like it was stomped or hacked on. Not shot or anything. Weird.

A Savage Post

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...Is coming soon...
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Ordinary Friday

Ordinary World~Duran Duran

2nd Amendment /flex

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I ran across a story posted by RayDiffraction from RFC (top/left link) about a little dog alerting a homeowner to a possible break-in.
The gist of the story was that the homeowner found some suspicious things laying around and he sort of knew something might be hinkey. Having his alarm system disarmed because of storms, the only alert he received was from his Chihuahua. He met the burglar (who was attempting to tunnel onto the property) with a .357 magnum.
Hello Castle Doctrine!
OK, now for the reason I blogged this...
The story, although great, isn't what caught my attention the most.
The comments were! As of currently posting this entry, every single comment so far is in support of the homeowner and what he did. Not a single hint of anti-gun rhetoric. Awesome.
Here are some:

Thank God for the castle law. We could all be living in places like England, or Chicago or DC like helpless sheep.

...after one verbal warning my first round would have been in the center of mass, not the fencepost. It'd be the very last time he violates his probation.

Burglary is a tough occupation. Everyone in our neighborhood has "anti burgler[sic]" instruments readily available. Ruger, Smith & Wesson, Colt, Winchester, among others, make very fine instruments.

Too bad we can't post that: "protected by smith & wesson[sic]" on a sign in our front yards. I bet that would make a better deterrent than ADT.

The people have spoken.
Amen.
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