Breakfast With The Grim Reaper

That's what it probably looks like...
Mr.Chaos tends to get his hair cut super short when he goes to the barber. This morning (as well as many others recently) was still below freezing temps, and the programmable thermostat hadn't kicked in for the set time yet, creating a chilly house.
Mr.Chaos was sitting across from me at the dining room table eating breakfast in front the big window... It was cold out there. He was wearing an all black sweatshirt and decided to put the hood up over his nearly shaved head. But it's not one of those fitted hoods, so it came off looking sort of Emperor-ish.
Passersby would have been amused...or frightened...
My oatmeal needs warmed up!!

The GSG 1911

It just keeps gettin' funner and more funner! :D
Spent a couple hours sending lead downrange with shooterchick.
I'm so glad I bought this gun.
For the first time today, I tried shooting with winter gloves on. It was really different, not being able to feel that trigger break, but it was fun to do something new. It was shooterchick's idea...I always have gloves in my winter coat pockets, but rarely ever wear them. I don't know why...I just don't.
Anyhow, I tried it with the GSG since it feels the same in my grip as my Kimber or Rock. Here's the target from a few mags plus a few more shots. There were three dots on it initially. The middle one abandoned ship.
Take note of the upper left corner of the cardboard...see that hole blown away?
Shooterchick pinned a key chain up there and blastinated it. It blew the key chain through the cardboard. We found part of it, but not the middle. She's gonna put it back on her keyring and carry it...

It Figures.

Well...I shot the GSG 1911/22 yesterday.

I did some things that I should have known better about...so I ended up screwing the pooch.

Had about 4 stove pipes and twice that many failures to extract. By failure to extract, I mean when the trigger was pulled, the round was fired, but then the slide either never slid open/closed, or if it did, the spent case never got pulled out...because when I pulled the slide back manually, there sat the empty case with the next round either in place (or in a couple instances) trying to get into place.

Probably the crappy ammo (Federal Champ, Rem Golden...those are the only ones I had on me from yesterday, but I'll try different ones next time because it sounds like High Vel will be the order of the day)...

Also...could have been the cold. It's windy & below freezing temps and I used regular oil instead of synthetic (which I usually DO use in the winter)... Anyhow, I won't get a chance to go again until Saturday, now...and the forecast is STILL not my friend.

I'm gonna clean it again, I'll over lube it (which sounds like what's being suggested all over the gun boards), and use the synthetic stuff this time. I'll also try some better ammo. I should have known better...but honestly, the crappy dirty junk works fine in the revolvers, so that's why I even still had it with me...

Lesson learned.
I'm about 93% sure it was ammo/cold related.

The reason I say that is because (like I've said before) when I put this GSG on layaway, an acquaintance asked me if I wanted to borrow his to shoot, to see if I really liked it.
He'd had it for weeks and never took it out of the box... so I was the first one to shoot it (after I field stripped it and cleaned all the GI grease off of it.)
I used better ammo in it (Federal Bulk pack) and the weather was deceivingly "spring-like" (around 50)...it shot flawlessly and was a ton of fun.

So the differences were:
below freezing temps
Crappy ammo

I won't have a chance to run it again until the weekend...but I think I'm gonna pick up more CCI (I'm out) and maybe some Aguila, too. Somebody mentioned that, and I'd forgotten all about it. Aguila is more high vel too, which seems to be what people are saying works best. One guy said that it's stated in the manual...but I looked and I didn't see that. Maybe it's written in the section where it says you have to remove the hex screw or the area where it's stated that the spring is tapered and it should go back in with the wide end under the cap or you might bugger up your slide's function. Oh, that's right...it *doesn't* say that anywhere...

I Got This...

"I got this." I'm sure that's what the driver of a great big pickup truck with great big tires was thinking when he was barreling down a snowy/icy road this morning.
I was on my way to work, and he was in the other lane, oncoming.
He started to fishtail a little and then slid over into MY lane and ended up sliding right on into the guard rail on my side of the road. I had enough space to stop...and I waited. The dude rolled down his window and gave the "I'm OK" thumbs up, so I slowly pulled way out and around him. That was a tense moment!

The Shoot

Had a great meet-up/range time with some old friends and made some new.
Shot a couple things that I hadn't before, including an AK47. Nice.
Afterward, a few of us had a quick bite at a diner near the interstate ramp and I zipped home in time for kick-off.
I wish the Colts had won, but it was still a good game. I held out hope til the end, but the Saints just had more heart for it. So congrats, Who Dats, on your big Super Bowl win.
Mardi Gras this year will be the show of all shows.

The Death of the Mighty Balloon

OK, so we met out there and I put down some tarps to catch the .45 & .380 brass.
I set up my little oak table that I lug out there because there's NOTHING to set stuff on but the ground...
We started cutting off the balloons from the ice, and... it started to snow!

We tossed them all at the foot of the berm and then put a dozen or so clays all over, too.
We shot her Bersa .380, her Springfield .45, my 22A, and my Remmy 870.

The shotgun just chipped and cracked the ice. The rest of them blasted them to smithereens. Even the lowly .22!

Here's before pics:


Here's a pic after a 20ga hit:


Here's an after:


We didn't think to get out her SKS until after everything was gone...
except her coffee cup from the gas station.
So we set it up on the hill in a little snow pocket and took turns being mad because neither one of us could hit it.
After we emptied on it, we ran down to see what the heck...
Then we found this:

Brrr...Range Time!!

It's a balmy 14ºF ...time to go practice draw/shoot with different types of gloves on!
Best part: New shooterchick friend going along!! WOOT!
I might just shed a tear if I didn't think it would freeze to my face...

Cold

Negative 17? Before windchill? Yeah, I'm so over that.
I'm ready for winter to be done.
Schools are being delayed or outright closing everywhere...not because of all the snow/ice dumped on us the last few days, but because of the extreme cold.
Global warming? Yes, please Mr. Gore. I would like to experience some of your junk science right about now. I'm freezing!
*note to self; increase flannel sheet order.

What a mess.

We've been planning for my mom to fly here for an early family Christmas ever since May or June this year. It just figures that we'd be having the worst ice and yuck that I can ever remember since I moved back to Indiana.
The day mom was due to fly in, we were under a level 2 ice emergency and it took me about 3 hours of picking my way through the city through fallen trees and electrical poles and wires jumbled up everywhere.
Everything was encrusted with a little over an inch of solid ice. If I didn't absolutely have to go anywhere, I'd have for sure not set foot outside my door. Cars were sliding into each other and it amazed me what sort of chances people decided to take. For instance, the ice storm knocked over 100 thousand people out of power before it was over...and that included traffic lights.
Normally, when the lights are out you treat an intersection like a four-way stop. Not a lot of the drivers I saw! It was an insane jumble of people trying to get through first and bringing a string of non-stop coat tail riders with them. Horns were blaring, cars were sliding, people were dodging...at every_single_crossing. Over and over and over. You'd think they'd *get* it by the time they drove a block or two to the next intersection, but noooo.

Last night we took my mom back to the airport and her flight was on time departing, but at the next stop in Atlanta they delayed three or four times. She was initially supposed to get home around 10:30pm or so, but never got home until well after 1am this morning.

All in all, other than the weather sucking (especially for someone from Florida!), we had a great family Christmas at the lodge.

Snow... I haz it.

Overnight and early this morning, snowfall accumulated about four inches. More is expected in the next day or so.
Time to dust off my favorite Robert Frost poem:

~Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening~

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.