Range Trips for Health.

[Demi-human]

The best laid plans, of mice and men, oft go awry.

I couldn’t get them to concentrate on homework, so no shooting with Dadi.

Why does Dadi have to be punished, too?

Went out to the shop and turned and egg for Easter out of some cherry I had kicking around.
I have some rounds made up. Hopefully tomorrow goes easier.

 

[Demi-human]

Well, looks like the 450Bushmaster gets to play this week after all!

Sweet, recoil therapy!

 

[mokin]

I feel a whole lot better after my trip to the range yesterday. I took lionking up on the March-May handgun challenge and "tested" some loads I made for my old Carcano. Not a big trip but it was a great day to get out.

 

[Demi-human]

Well, home schooling is much more interesting than I thought it would be.

After threatening “No shooting with Dadi.” I was called out...
“Then you don’t get to go either!”.

Anybody else have a ten year old girl?

So after a call up to Grandma, don’t you tell me what’s happening girl, I went to the cabin to fire the twenty rounds I made.

Nearly all were perfect with the Valkyrie seater. 1.9165” CBTO. Two were not. Those went first.
With the first shot blowing the plaster off the recycled target. I found it and put it right where it glanced the red one. I then went to the lower right for the remaining four.

Completely unimpressed, I shot the lower sticky dot, putting the remainder of the twenty there, with no fear of whittling away the plaster... All four charges were lack luster. None were wonderful, nothing to find here. I kinda felt it with the first five.


Deflated, I went home. These are terrible compared to the 75grn BTHPs.


It was a gorgeous day, and I needed it. I wish the ornery little bears would have come, but “no work, no play”. That’s the way it is.
They’ve been much more well behaved since I’ve returned.
Perhaps they learned not to cross Grandma?

I KNOW I DID!

When j pulled up to park I saw a bird just sitting there, groggy looking. I tried to get a picture but it doesn’t look like what it was.
When I looked it up I found a perfect picture of a Snipe. That was what it was.
Even though I figured out soon into the hunt while out camping, there weren’t any snipes, especially at night, here it was in plain day!
It walked away from the truck, and dipped a little showing white tail feathers. For the coloring, “grouse” covers it perfectly, but the long bill?

The picture looks like yard.

But it’s there.

It was a beautiful morning. So I’m glad I took it.

Taking a break to be exasperated...


Pock marks from my Desert Eagle. A few, apparently random, strikes from the other boys AR, even after being told not to. And a couple concentric circles from some jacketed .44Mag.

We know it isn’t rifle rated, but now we know it isn’t magnum handgun rated either...


It was a nice day for Bocce Ball when I got back. Maybe tomorrow, if they’re good...

 

[Chuck R.]

Weather was absolutely perfect this am, 50 degrees and not enough wind to register on he Kestrel. Headed out back to zero a couple rifles for new loads, then verified at 200 and 300:



Also gave me a chance to get a couple more MVs at 50 degrees. I've got a couple friends coming out at 2:00 to plink steel, we'll be sure to maintain our social distance.

 

[Ignition Override]

Demi-human:

Shakespeare described so many things with “Familiarity breeds contempt” and, though this might not refer to (your) home-schooling, “Misery loves company”.

I never had a daughter.
Glad that you got to go shoot.

 

[Demi-human]

I got to take a little break today.

It’s finally spring in Michigan!

I got the Sinclair Expanding mandrel and the new ELD seating stem in the Mail today and made four more sets of five.
(Mostly to get out of the house!)

Well seventeen anyway. I seemed to have lost three of them on the way somewhere. Replaced with fifty grain Z-Maxs and an extra grain of CFE223. I shot them as barrel warmers. I had to seat them with the Valkyrie seater die, as the new ELD stem wouldn’t get them far enough in. The stem in the Valk was not an ELD profile after all, even though it was more gentle on the noses.

I post them all big or small...


Well, over the last fourty rounds I feel these need more juice than the BTHP, they like the new expander mandrel, my form is poor from too short a picnic table, and I really like the new stem. It seats them without so much as a mark on the bullet.

The two top are without using the mandrel that is one thousandth bigger than the ball in the die.

The bottom is six, and one lack of control.

This is what we’ve been doing in between adjectives and addition. Logan found it in the basement and just had to put it together, and was over it in ten minutes...

Dadi finishes what he starts.
God Bless America!

(I now hate puzzles...)

 

[Demi-human]

So, not going out today I see.



These will just have to keep me occupied...


But with the new Lee APP, I’m running out of brass prep quickly!
Little Bear even helped with some, but it was sizing and he ran out of steam quick!

In a little while I should have much ammunition made for another exciting installment of,
Range Days for Health!

Anyone that has a place to shoot, feel free to add!
I can’t give encouragement to every locked down soul all by myself!

 

[Demi-human]

Week the snow finally left. Not in time for my birthday but, hey, I got to go shooting today.

Three different charges. Increasing left to right. All seated in near perfection with the new stem. 1.9165” from Cartridge base to Ogive.

The first two dots are half an inch and the last one three quarters. Scavenged from some already there, to save me a walk back to the bench.
They printed much higher with increasing charge than I thought they would. The primers still don’t look like the previous loads that shot well. I am not at the top yet. I actually like the last one. These don’t touch the rifling as hard as the others did, I think that is the loss of pressure.


An unfortunate part was the mirage today, even just a hundred yards away.
My range targets at one hundred cause me to shoot about eight inches above the berm of the closest bean field, for the middle thirty yards.
When the sun comes out it’s hard to even see the little black dot of the target. I was doing good for the first part of the last group, I thought. Then the sun hit it and the dot just danced around. I really was trying and thought I had a good release and everything. Evidently that was not where the dot was...

Ha! That’s my excuse anyway!

I really am liking the Sinclair Expanding Mandrel. Such smooth and easy seating never did I see before. I can’t wait for the .222” nitride one to get here.

Spirits up friends! The ranges will be open soon!

 

[TomJ]

Our gun club opens today for members and immediate family members. I'm headed there as soon as I finish up at work. With most of Illinois being shut down I have a feeling it's going to be packed, kind of like a dam bursting with us finally having something to do.

 

[Demi-human]

Slight winds and comfortable temperatures to you!

May the singing of shots ring loud across the land!

 

[TomJ]

Slight winds and comfortable temperatures to you!

May the singing of shots ring loud across the land!

73 degrees and sunny. I'm on my way in a few minutes.

 

[Demi-human]

I can not believe we are still doing this in Michigan...

But, it was a great day for a walk up Frog Ridge. The kids and I headed out through the forest near the HayMarsh. We went miles(yards) through the forest and found our way with the sun(for thirty minutes).

Afterward we spent a few minutes going over a refresher course on safety and emergency routines.

Then we plinked the steel rack till our hearts were content!
Mini Amazon is an even better shot than Little Bear, but don’t tell him that! (He needs one thing over his big sister...)


“You got it Sweetie!” “I know, Dadi...”

We finished with an exhibition.
They were amazed I could shoot daisies off the stalk with the Red Rascal.
They were astounded when I took three in a row at twenty feet with my Buckmark pistol!

I was too, but I didn’t tell them that!

 

[CapnMac]

I have much missed trips out to the range.
The shut down closed many things. And WFH meant I had even less free time than before (five people doing the work of seven; sigh).
It does not help that I'm marooned in the metroperdition of DFW. In my old town, there were plenty of "gravel pits" and eventually open ranges, I could have exploited to decrease my stress levels. (It's a long drive to get to places where I can expend FMJ rifle rounds.) C'est la vie say our French friends.

I have been able to do what I couldn't at work--go outside for thirty minutes or so on the patio with the dogs--so, there is that.

Ant, it's now June in Texas, so it's getting back to miserable hot--as in "80º by eight"--and still a long haul out to the range. But, the choice is no choice--not shooting.

My hat is off to all of you who have been able to take advantage of Spring and get in what we all seek, the relaxation, the "zen" of shooting. Let's face it a mediocre hour at the range beats almost everything else.