I Can Still Smell The Gunpowder

Went shootin' today for the first time in a long, long time.

No point in having that iron and lead laying around if ya can't use it once in a while.

I got invited to a private range by someone who shall remain anonymous except between me, him and the fucking NSA.
They know who he is because we had to Email some info back and forth and then I had to use Google Maps to find his house.

Anyways.

I got up and loaded the rig and boogied clear across town and we got in his rig and drove on over to the range.
It's a big sucker and private or invite only.
They have all kinds of ranges all the way up to a 600 yard monster.

First we went to the pistol range.
I didn't bring one but he had his Glock .40.

Nice pistol.

He banged away with it and then offered it to me so I let off a couple.
Note to self, learn to modify your two handed grip to keep the slide from banging your knuckle.
No biggie.

Then we went over to the 100 yard range so I could attempt to sight in some of my iron.

He brought a real nice 30.06 and his 10/22 also.
We started out with his .06 and it didn't take him long to dial that right in.

I tried a few rounds and promptly got scoped across the bridge of my nose.
Not too bad, just a good scrape, not much leakage

Then we went to my Grandfathers deer rifle that I have been waiting to shoot for juuuuuust about 38 years or so.


I was with him the day he bought it and he had it in his hands over the top of the counter in a Payless Drug store when he turned to me and said that this was mine when he died.

That's right, a Payless.

He has been gone since 1999 and my uncle got his grubby little mitts on it and used it many years before I finally threatened him with bodily harm if it didn't come into my possession in a very short amount of time.

I have had it for a while but never made an opportunity until today to fire it.

It's a sweet little .243 Winchester Bolt action with a scope and it's a deer slaying motherfucker too.


One thing that is going to happen to that thing is to get a proper butt pad.
It has a small suggestion of a rubber pad less than a quarter inch thick.
Other than that I am going to clean it, oil it and put it away for now.

Next up was a more recent acquisition.
A Remington 30.06 I snagged at a gun show in March for $150.
I got that from some guy who had just got there and was wandering around trying to sell it.

I couldn't get the money in his hands fast enough.
One of the dealers had the same gun there trying to get $700 for it.
He even gave me an extra 4 round magazine and three boxes of shells!

This thing is a brute though.
Open sights, old school wood frame with a sling and a steel butt plate.

My shootin' partner is a good six foot and over two hundred pounds.
After three rounds it was, uuuuhhh yeah.
Idon'tthinkIwanttoshootthisoneanymore.

Kick?
Holy shit does that thing kick. That steel butt pad is just a joy and it just might need something frivolous put on the business end of the barrel too.

I ran a few mags through it and actually managed to hit a four inch black target on a white background with open sights at a hundred yards.


Somebody needs to alert The Pope that a miracle happened today.


I had some feed issues with it and it is going to have some serious assed modifications in it's future.
I oiled it and that helped, in hindsight the magazine probably could have used a couple shots too.

New stock, a GOOD scope and the most cushy butt pad known to man is going on that bastard.

That thing is just a beast. Somebody wandered over and asked what the hell we were shooting that made so much noise at one point. Daddy like.



I finally had enough self abuse from that brute and we moved on to the 10/22's.
His was almost brand new but we had some feed issues with it too.

I finally shot it with some oil and after a while it started behaving.
Amazing what some lubrication will do.

I drug out my Ruger and slammed a mag in it, turned the Red Dot on and started trying to punch a few holes in the paper.
This gun I got from a buddy and I hadn't fired it either.
The Red Dot I got from a guy at work amid a bunch of other stuff.

One thing we didn't bring was a barn door and I really needed one.
That fucking thing was so far off that the bullets were kicking up dirt SIX FEET in front of the target!
I couldn't figure out how to adjust the damn thing so I took it off and threw on a scope that I had bought for it. The mounts weren't right but I managed to make it work, kinda.

Here comes another barn door moment.

I couldn't hit a target at fifty feet with that thing that was two feet wide and two feet high.

My buddy had a spotting scope and he couldn't even tell where they were going!

I finally got pissed off and started shooting at the dirt bank behind the target just to see where in the fuck the bullets were going!


Over a foot low and a foot to the left!

Holy moly.
We fucked around with that thing for damn near an hour trying to get it right.
In the mean time another guy comes over and wants to know where we found .22 rounds.

In my garage.

He said he hadn't seen any at Bi Mart when he was there the other day and I busted out laughing.
Dude! I haven't seen .22 shells in Bi Mart for EIGHT MONTHS!
We burned up about a brick and a half today and it was a blast but the whole time I am thinking to myself that I am going to be paying out the ass replacing them.

So my rifles are semi sited in, kinda.
The scope mount on the Ruger is for a different kind of rail, I just tightened the dog shit out of it to make it stay on but it ain't right.
The .243 isn't dead nuts on like I want so it will need another go round after I put a decent pad on it and the Beast is getting a make over before it goes out in public again.

My right shoulder is talking to me so I am going to get off here and go clean 'em up and put 'em away.