An Infidel and an Odyssey Part 6

A buddy at work told me about a guided hog hunt where you pay $100 to shoot a meat hog and they skin it, quarter it and put it in your cooler. It sounded too good to be true but it planted a seed.

I thought about doing a pig hunt as sort of the next step in The Elfen Niece's journey into becoming a shooter and it seemed like a way to maximize the odds of her having a successful first hunt so I made the call.

Turned out to be $150 but the rest of the story was true so I set it up while TEN was off at spring break.   I ordered two boxes of 240 grain Nosler soft nose bullets to load for the Ruger 44 Carbine.  I selected that rifle for her because it is the old model and looks so much like her 10-22 that I thought it would give her one less thing to learn.

I talked to a buddy who had a son that been skunked a couple of times hunting on their property and they wanted to go too so we set up a party of four. Two shooters and two watchers.

Setting up my CH press and my Lyman powder measure, I eyeballed the drum and set it for what looked like it would throw close to 23 grains of Winchester 296.    I threw the first charge and it weighed 23 grains.   Well, the first one is sometimes a little off from what  its going to throw so I threw another and it was 23 grains.   I threw another and it was 23 grains.  Holy smoke.  I set the measure by eye and hit it right on the nose.  I won't live long enough to so that again but  it sure looked like a good omen.

TEN came waltzing though the door about supper time (that's dinner time if you are a yankee) and asked what I was doing.   I explained that I was loading 44 Magnum ammo because I was going on a guided pig hunt the next weekend.   She said "I could do that" and I told her that was good because she was going and she was going to shoot the pig.   She was all in.

I loaded up some dummy rounds so she could practice loading the rifle.   The first time she picked the rifle  up she gave a huge smile and exclaimed "this is awesome!"  We did dry fire practice from the kitchen table.  I explained that she needed to hold it tighter to her shoulder than she did her 10-22 and why.

We got it dialed in at the range.  It will shoot minute of pig out past 100 yards.  We were good to go.

The appointed day arrived and The Lovely Bride managed to get The Elfen Niece out of bed a good 5 minutes before we were supposed to leave.  She usually doesn't get up for anything until 10 minutes after so that was a good sign.

We drove to a little crossroads community and met up with my buddy and his #1 son.  The guy in charge of the hunt showed up a few minutes later and led us to an old farmhouse on the edge of some woods.

We had a little meeting where the hunt boss impressed upon us the dangers of getting out of  the stands or doing pretty much anything besides exactly what he told us to do.  Mostly he impressed upon us the fact that he was in charge.  Marshal Dillon would seem bashful by comparison.  When I told him what each shooter was shooting, he took TEN aside for a little lecture.   I was talking to the others and didn't pay attention to what he was telling her but later that morning  I wished I had.

Walking to the stands, the hunt boss insisted on carrying TEN's rifle.   He told me that he wanted first dibbs on buying it if I ever sold it.  I said that it was was TEN's rifle, not mine and that we had no reason to want o sell it.

"SHHHHHHHHH!    The hogs will hear you.  They're all around us right now."

Whatever.

We get to our stand and the hunt boss sends us both up to the top and then he hands us our rifles.  We sit back and we are looking at a feeder that isn't twenty feet away.  I guess that's about all you can expect out of a $150 guided hog hunt.  They guide you to the feeder so you can assassinate a pig while its having breakfast like its someone with the goods on Hillary.

We get our Thermacell cooking, put our electronic hearing protection on and start to load our rifles when

Grunt

Oh crap.

"What was that?"

"Hogs."

Grunt Grunt

And two dozen pigs swarmed the feeder.

"Which one do I shoot?"

They were all black except one that was white with black spots.   Saying "shoot the black one" wouldn't tell her which one and would just result in the rest of them looting and burning their woods down so I told her to shoot the white one with the spots.  She nudged her rife into position and her pig saw the movement.  While I was waiting for the shot, it stared at her for a few seconds and took off.  All the other pigs followed.   

Well Crap. What did Archibald Rutledge say about being ready the moment you get to your stand?

So the hunt is over  and we are under orders to not get out of the stand until the hunt boss comes to get us.  I asked why she hesitated to shoot and she told me that the hunt boss told her that she had to shoot the pig in the side behind the shoulder because her bullet would bounce off its head.  The pig was looking straight at her so she never had a broadside shot.   Thanks hunt boss.  The pig weren't that big.

We sat there whispering as if there was any use.  We heard the feeder come on behind us.  We watched a hawk in the next tree.  We heard our feeder come on.  We watched spiders and squirrels and birds.  We listened to cows in the next pasture and TEN was fascinated by all these sights and sounds that she had never heard before.   Mostly we waited for the hunt boss to come give us permission to get out of the stand.

He finally arrived about 8:30 and we told him our story.  He asked if we wanted to hunt them up with his dog, Magnum.   Of course we did.

Magnum is really still just a puppy and is in training to be a cattle dog but he got on the trail.  We followed and pretty soon saw the whole herd moving through the palmettos about a hundred yards off to our right.  We heard the dog behind us, saw him jump and a palmetto thicket exploded as a big spotted boar tore through it not thirty feet away.   The boar ran to join the herd and TEN and my buddy's son were entranced.   Marlin Perkins would have been proud.

NOW we're hunting.

The dog kept the herd moving and the day was getting warmer.   There were only two watering holes in the area and the herd kept going from one to the other trying to get a drink but  little old Magnum kept them moving.   The hunt boss kept Magnum cooled off and hydrated so he could keep the herd moving.  After about 30 minutes of that, he called Magnum in and had my buddy and his son set up at one of the watering holes.

Sure enough, it wasn't ten minutes before the herd came to them and they had their pig.

Our turn was next.   I was carrying a Savage Model 99 in 303 Savage (big surprise there) and TEN had her 44.   I don't know why but the hunt boss told me to leave my rifle in the truck.  It was his hunt so I did.   

We set up by the watering hole and waited.   TEN was propped up against the base of a pine tree listening and I was about two trees in back of her shooting pictures on my cell phone.   Pretty soon the herd came up from behind us on our left.  They milled around in the brush for a few minutes and then quietly went back the way they had come.

(OK. So that's the stuffed pig at the Bass Pro in Orlando. Its for illustrative purposes. If the History Channel can show footage of German Mk IVs while talking about Tiger Tanks I can use somebody else's dead pig).

 I'm too deaf to hear it but they circled around behind us and came up from our right.  Before I could get my phone camera set to video, they had spread out around the watering hole.

TEN picked out a nice eatin-sized pig and fired.   The pig jumped, spun around several times and then took off after the herd with a gait that looked like it needed new spark plug wires. I yelled to shoot it again and TEN said the gun wouldn't shoot.

I didn't have my rifle because the hunt boss told me to leave it in the truck so the pig got away.

Sure enough, the 44 had misfed from the magazine and it took five minutes to get the thing cleared and reloaded.

TEN made the comment that the gun hadn't kicked nearly as bad as she expected. That was odd so I asked what she meant and she explained that her little talk with the hunt boss consisted of him telling her that the 44 Magnum Carbine would kick so hard that the scope would split her forehead open and she'd have to get stitches.   That was right before he told me that he wanted me to sell it to him.   

Sabotage.

Only the plan backfired.  She hit the pig anyway.   

The hunt boss was late for an appointment and kept insisting that we show him where the pig was when she shot it and where the blood was.  He wasn't convinced she'd hit it.   She kept insisting that she had hit it and we had to find it.   We found the spot soon enough.    She had definitely connected with some part of that pig.   There was blood on the ground and it was red.   Hunt boss decided that she'd shot it in the butt because butt-shot hogs spin around in circles.  I didn't think so because it wasn't running like its back end was hurt.  It was more of a stuttering trot.  Either way, we had to find it.

After a cursory search, the hunt boss left us in the hands of the assistant hunt boss.  He cleaned my buddy's pig and then called a friend to come help hunt down the wounded one.

We split up to search the woods again.  The assistant hunt boss said to shoot the last pig in the herd because that's where the wounded one would be.   We were a couple of hundred yards away when he found the herd.  Trouble was, there were three pigs hanging back, not just one.   Then he noticed that one was limping and he shot that pig.   

We moved toward the sound of the shot and found everyone examining the pig.  Before I got up to it I asked to see where the first bullet had hit.

It was the off-side front foot.

She was so rattled by the hunt boss telling her she'd get her forehead split open by that incredibly powerful 44 Magnum carbine that the he wanted me to sell him that she flinched and shot it in the foot at all of twenty yards away.  

She has never fired a gun without me being there and I have never seen her flinch, even with that rifle, but she flinched that day and the only reason was she was told she would get hurt and need stitches when she pulled the trigger.   I was actually proud of her for shooting with that stupid story planted in her mind.  She was going to do this stitches or not and she did.  

The assistant hunt boss cleaned our pig and put it in the cooler.  I paid him a little extra because he was so helpful.

This is fresh meat:

So far we have had pig steaks and pig sausage gravy biscuits.   It will go down in history as the most expensive pig I ever bought but over lunch TEN told me the she was sorry that the hunt boss got upset but that it really worked out better because we actually got to hunt instead of just shooting a pig at a feeder.   Worked out pretty well.

 I took the 44 to the range the next day and fired 30 rounds trying to make it miss or jam and it did neither.  I think the jam might be due to the scare job the hunt boss put on her too.  If you can limp-wrist a Glock maybe you can limp shoulder a rifle.  I don't know.  I just know I can't make it jam.

This week she informed me that we need to find someone who will let us hunt deer on their land.

This is what its all about.

I made that call today.   The food plot is going in next weekend.    She will be shooting a custom Mark X Mauser in 25-06 with a muzzle brake on it.  With Accubombs its as accurate as a drill press and kicks about like a 22 Hornet.

The venison might as well just throw itself in the pan right now.

An Infidel and an Odyssey Part 4

After Aunt Clickity got her passing grade in the permit class by proving to the instructor that she is capable of using her gun without hurting anybody she doesn't intend to hurt, I stuck around to sight in a hog rifle.   In the ensuing conversation, the instructor mentioned that he did classes off the schedule for groups of ten or more.   A seed was planted.

When I got home, The Lovely Bride agreed that we probably had enough friends, family, family of friends and friends of family to cobble together at least ten intrepid souls to form a  class.

TLB's day off is Monday and, when she got to work Tuesday Morning, the groundwork was already in place.  Aunt Clickity had spent all day Monday proselytizing for the cause of concealed carry and several people wanted to get in on the next class.

I sent a few assbook messages and the first two netted us three students.  This was gonna be easy!  Aunt Clickity had four lined up.  Our niece was on board as was a brother in law and we had two more probables depending on whether my coworker would get around to asking one of his friends.  

 If everything went right we had our Ten and it just took 2 days.

Then the brother in law dropped out.

Then two of Aunt Clickity's didn't have the money.  Then the other two weren't sure because one was eighteen and was intimidated.

Suddenly I'm herding cats.

Then the instructor called. I was afraid that he was going to ask me about the head count.  Nope.  He called to tell me that someone else had called him to get in on the class.  I had given the lady one of his cards a couple of weeks before and she wanted in.

Over the course of the next week we had all but three back in the corral.   The brother in law was out and two of Aunt Clickity's still didn't have the money.   Communicating through Aunt Clickity, through TLB, through me to the instructor, they wanted to know if he took credit cards.   He did but had never used the swipey gizmo that he had so he wasn't really interested in trying it out just yet.   Sarcastically, I suggested that they might try paypal.   After doing so, I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask the instructor if he did take it and danged if he doesn't!

By that time, another week had passed and TLB was at work when she heard someone whispering "Hallelujah" over and over again behind her.  She turned around and there was Aunt Clickity whispering "Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Halleujah" over and over again, making little silent clapping motions with her hands.

"What?"

"Hallelujah"  

"What?"

"Oh Hallelujah!"

"Oh Hallelujah WHAT?"

"They have Paypal."   

"HALLELUJAH!!"  

 Her other two friends had already paid by Paypal.  That made eleven. 

The appointed day arrived and the class went great.  One person even brought her husband so we had twelve.

We had no lesbians this time but the diversity police would have still been pleased because we had a mixed race couple and TLB's friend from work came with her daughter and they are African American. I know it dissapoints liberals to no end but we just ain't as good at being bigots as they are at calling us bigots.

The indoor part went smoothly.  The best questions came from the 18 year old. 

Once we hit the firing line, we split the pack into groups of five.  The instructor took the left and his  flunkie  erstwhile assistant  took the other.  I was actually going to get to do something besides put up targets!

Sister in law had her husband's 9mm and had trouble loading the magazine.  The whole push down and then slide in thing wasn't happening for her.  We did get her five rounds loaded and she hit blue paper when the instructor gave permission to fire one round.

The Adjectiveless Niece (I'm tempted to call her something like "The Elfen Niece" but I'm not sure that doesn't carry a connotation that I don't want to imply  - the class was in Ft. McCoy but I don't live there)   was next to her.  Both took their  blue paper assailants out of the gene pool.  

 

The next group included the 18 year old and her Mother.  Since the Mother was TLB's friend from work, they were assigned to me.  The girl borrowed the .32 H&R from TAN (TEN?) and loved it.

The little gun has a bull barrel and a round butt.  Its easy to hold and its easy to hold steady.  We were shooting .32 S&W Longs with cast lead bullets and my own home made bullet lube.   

Back during the heady days of  Bill Clinton Presidency, Buckshot and I did some experimenting along the lines of "where would we get ___________  if it were suddenly banned?"   Among the ensuing projects, we cooked up our own bullet lube from unconventional ingredients.  This stuff had a good proportion of commode flange ring in it.   It works well enough as a bullet lube in the .32 and it makes a tiny puff of smoke when its fired.   Kids and new shooters love it.  They can see that they've shot something.

The 18 year old went through the drill and gradually got her shots pretty well centered.   All the while she kept telling me "I can't believe I can do this!"   When her group was finished, she asked if she could keep a spent casing as a souvenir.

Whoo-Hoo.  That's what its all about!

The last group was just two folks.  My Buddy Ray and his girlfriend.   Her Mother had died a few days before but she had said she would attend and she kept her word.    Both shot well.  I believe Ray did better than anyone.

The class adjourned to the local Bubba Ques for lunch.  Appropriately, this particular Bubba Ques has sulfur in its water.

In the aftermath, I sold the Hapgood shotgun to a friend for a wall hanger, TLB joined The Well-Armed Woman and TAN learned how to cast her own bullets for the .32.   Seriously, my 19 year old niece that hadn't touched a gun until 18 months ago is casting her own bullets for the .32.  

I don't know how it could have gone better. 

An Infidel and an Odyssey Part 3

After getting familiar with her new Ruger LCR, Aunt Clickity ("AC") accompanied The Lovely Bride ("TLB") and The Adjectiveless Niece ("TAN") to a ladies night shooting class at Harry Beckwith Guns in Micanopy to get more instruction and practice.

The class turned out to be meant for more advanced shooters that night so she didn't participate.    They had a couple of guest instructors.  Ex military guys who now do "Corporate Security."   They had the beards and the 511 Tactical stuff going on but AC wasn't ready for double tap drills and snap shooting poker cards.

Turns out that TAN wasn't ready for the cards either.   They put a whole bunch of cards on the target board and drill was to shoot the card that they called out as fast and as accurately as you can.  They called out "Five of Clubs" and TAN didn't shoot.   

"Did your gun misfire?"

"Nope"

"Then why didn't you shoot?"

"Which ones are the Clubs?"

OK.  A little basic instruction with playing cards and TLB and TAN finished the class.  It was a really good class.   Both raved about it for days.

AC didn't get to shoot because of her arthritis.  You just don't do quick draws and snap shooting real well if your hands can barely hold onto the gun.    To make up for it, she went to a public range with a friend on her day off and burned through the other half of the box of wadcutters.

By that time, she was feeling less intimidated by the gun, knew she could handle it safely and was ready to take her concealed weapon permit class.  The only problem was so were about half a million other people in the State and they were all in front of her.     

One particular instructor had been recommended to her over and over.  She talked to him on the phone and was devastated to learn that he was booked for the next three months.   It was really a big setback for her but, as it turns out, both TLB and I are friends of the instructor's family.

I called the instructor's son to see if there was any elasticity in his dad's  class sizes and found out that there wasn't. Class sizes were determined by the size of the class room  and it was maxed out in every class.   The good thing was that the instructor's son is also an instructor and he had an opening in a class that very weekend.    

We relayed the information to AC and she decided that If TLB would go with her she'd go.  TLB couldn't go so I volunteered that I was going to the class to assist the instructor anyway so I'd be there.  That's all it took.  She was in.   I even called afterward to ask the instructor if I could come out and help so it wasn't a lie for very long.  (Its OK.  I am the infidel in this story).

Come Saturday Morning we met at the instructor's house.  We got there early and helped set up the class room and I sat in on the start of the class.  The class was a model of diversity.  We had an eighty year old man, a couple of kids that weren't old enough to have the permit but wanted to take the class so they'd be ready when the time came.  We had a lesbian couple too.   Liberals would have been so confused that us right wing, homophobic etc etc ad-nauseum old bitter clingers didn't throw them out.   We covered basic handgun types and function and gun safety.  AC took pages of notes and asked intelligent questions.  After a break for coffee and nature, the class moved into the law on self defense.

Guess who gave that part of the class?   The instructor's dad.  The same instructor the AC had her heart set on originally!

Then came the shooting.  It wasn't really target shooting.  It was shooting to prove to the instructor that you can handle your gun without being a danger to yourself or anybody else.  Ten shots at a silhouette 7 yards away.  AC didn't go first but she didn't go last either.  When her group's turn came, she picked her gun up off the table, put her ammo in her pocket and walked to the line like John Wayne.

Shooting wasn't easy for her but she did fine.  Out of ten shots she put seven in the bowling pin zone.  The instructor gave her the seal of approval and she packed her stuff up and went home.  She didn't even stay around to pick up her certificate.  I had to bring it home to give it to TLB to pass it on to AC at work.

That's when I learned something about AC that I hadn't known before.  She actually doesn't like shooting.  She doesn't dislike guns but she doesn't have any particular affinity for guns or the shooting sports.  She has no desire to do a lot of shooting.  She just made the decision that she needed a gun for her own protection and she decided to do what it took to start from scratch, become safe with a gun and make it do what it needed to do if she needed it in the gravest extreme.  

The whole thing made sense now.  She hadn't fired a gun in over fifty years but decided that she needed one because she lives alone and frequently has to drive to a bigger city that has a lot of crime.  Instead of just buying any old gun and deciding she was somehow suddenly safe, she talked to people who had more experience than she had.  She got good advice and she got bad advice.  Then she took all that advice to several gun stores and tested it against her own physical disability.  That's what all the clickity-clickity was about.  She needed to know if she was going to be able to make the gun fire.  She tried out over a dozen different handguns before settling on the LCR. Then she got some instruction.

I know, the Glig & Wessfield BR-549 is a splendid fighting arm and anyone who chooses anything different for their own protection is a fool but amid the shouts of Raca-Raca from most of her expert advisors, she chose a gun that she could both hold onto and fire.  Strangely, those two things were important to her.

She tried a Glock 42 and couldn't rack the slide.  Kahrs were even harder to rack,  She tried a Glock 19 at her son's insistence.  Not only couldn't she rack the slide, she couldn't even hold onto it.  Most of her expert friends tried to steer her toward what they would carry.  The trouble with that was they have two hands that they can close around a handgun grip.   She doesn't.  One of her's barely closes.   We kept encouraging her to just find one that she could work and she stuck with it until she did.  It was like paying attention to the person shopping for the gun was worth the trouble.

AC's particular LCR naturally had a much heavier trigger pull than a Glock or any of the other semi-autos that she tried but it was unusually smooth.   She doesn't have fine motor control in even her good hand anymore.  She needed something that required a very deliberate and long pull and it needed to be the same the whole length of the stroke.   The LCR that she bought worked and it gives her five more shots than she would have if she had bought somebody else's idea of a "better" gun that she couldn't hold or shoot.  

You know what's even better?   Even though AC doesn't really like to shoot, she is recruiting new students to attend the class.   There's going to be a Part 4 to this Odyssey and she is helping  that happen.

An Infidel and an Odyssey Part 2

After the small feeding frenzy at the LGS, Aunt Clickity had to wait out her mandatory three day "cooling off period."  I'm sure it kept her from doing at least one drive by shooting.  Maybe two.   It being a Sunday when she bought the gun and then Monday being a holiday, she couldn't pick it up until Friday.  She did that and was scared to take it out of the box without supervision so it sat in her car until the next morning.

The reason it got out of her car the next morning was to go to the range.   While The Lovely Bride was reading up on her new Glock on Sunday, that sneaky SOB Lantry told her brother about it and suggested that we ought to have a family outing at the Hernando Sportsman's Club sometime soon.  Brother in Law said that Saturday was good for him so the die was cast.  TLB told Aunt Clickity and, since she was going to have her gun by then,  she wanted to go too.

Saturday morning finally got here and the weather girl was being a tease.  She kept talking about it raining all day.   TLB looked at the radar and it showed that it was going to rain in the morning, clear up about the time the range opened and then stay clear for an hour or so.  It wasn't going to rain all day.  It was going to rain off and on all day.   I told her that sounded a little like the weather that covered the Normandy landing in 1944 so we decided to go with it.  TLB's brother wasn't as optimistic and he stayed home. I told her to tell him that if he had been in charge on June 6 1944, Hitler would still be alive.  She said that Hitler would be 126 years old now so he wouldn't be alive.   If there is a point, she will find a way to miss it.

We got to the range without encountering much rain on the way and I went ahead of the group to see the Range Safety Officer.   I wanted him to be aware that we had someone with us who had never fired a gun before and that I thought that direction from someone in authority would probably help her develop good safety habits.   The folks there are always helpful and they assigned us a dedicated overseer.

TLB and Aunt Clickity took the spot at the left end of the bench and the Niece and I took the one next to it.  Our personal RSO pulled up a chair behind me and the Niece.  

I had given TLB two boxes of 9mm for the Glock and while the Niece was getting her 10-22 and the 32 Magnum ready, she started shooting.   It sounded loud so when she finished the first magazine I asked her what she was shooting.

"I don't know.  Whatever you loaded in it Saturday Night."

My Federal +P ammo that I got for the Luger because it has an old fashioned bullet profile and a relatively small hollow point.

"Try this Remington green box or the IMI stuff.  Its all good."

So she switched to some lead bullet reloads that I had put together for the Luger.  Ugh.

"Where did you get these?"

"In the reloading room on the shelf"

"They are lead.  You can't shoot lead through a Glock.  That's why I gave you two boxes of jacketed ammo."

"I wasn't sure that would be enough."

So she started burning through the hardball ammo and the Niece was burning up the 32 S&W long in the 32 Magnum and Aunt Clickity finally decided it was time to join in. 

She stepped up to the line and she and TLB started going over "The Rules" and how to operate the Ruger LCR.  While that was going on, I had the Niece switch to a gun with a little more aplomb than the 32.

A nineteen year old girl that can pass for fourteen tells you she has fired a Ruger 10-22 and you yawn.   Seven year old kids do that all the time.  Then she says she's shot a 32 Magnum.   OK, that's a little better but its still not impressive.  A 9mm Luger?  Stylish but not much else.   I can't have future prospective Nephews-in-Law scoffing at her shooting experience so I brought something special.

A buddy had a Smith & Wesson Model 25 and couldn't shoot it anymore because of arthritis in his wrists.    I put some small stocks on it to try to fit her hands better than the originals.   He gave me a box of his "Old Fart With Arthritis" loads.  A 255 grain lead bullet with just a sprinkling of Red Dot in the case.   She was going to be able to tell anybody that wanted to know that she had fired a Smith & Wesson Model 25, that it shoots 45 Colt and that she did pretty good with it.

The gun was still too big for her.  The grips fit her hand but the trigger was way out there almost out of reach.  She gave it a try anyway.  After a few rounds she shifted the gun to her left hand and used her right to kind of hold the left hand in place.  Since the gun really was too big for her, I didn't try to correct her into something that wasn't going to work for her.  I let her have fun.   I figured she'd shoot maybe a cylinder full and then break out the 10-22 but she emptied the gun and went at it again.  Final count was thirty rounds of 45 Colt.  She said it kicked more than the 32 but that it wasn't bad.  A very good reason why folks should reload.

I can't wait until that day when some dude tries to impress her with his 9mm Glock.  She'll just tell him "I shoot little guns too sometimes but when I'm serious I shoot a 45 Colt.  Pick up your jaw, tough guy.  You look silly."  

 
Our personal RSO finally figured out that the Niece wasn't the new shooter and decided to help out with TLB and Aunt Clickity.  He wound up kind of hovering over them.  There's a lot of rules at this particular range.  All of them make sense but there's a lot more than just four of them.   He found plenty to keep himself busy.  I even got gigged for having my root beer on the shooting bench.   Its a rule.  Its on a sign.  

"Do you want unburned powder and lead particles in your root beer?" 

"No Sir."

They have rules and all of the rules make sense.

I didn't have to do any push ups.   They are really nice that way. 
 
We gave Aunt Clickity a box of  .38 Special wad cutters.   She had me and TLB fire a couple of round each so she could watch what we did and know what to expect as far as recoil and noise.  Then she took over and shot up about half the box of ammo.  After the first couple of shots she even stopped saying "Ooooooh!" every time it went off.  She managed to keep them on the paper and even had more than a few right where they needed to be.  It was not bad at all for a very first time ever shooter.

The rain did sprinkle just a little about midway through but it wasn't hardly enough to notice.   The Niece has shot "a REAL gun" now and   Aunt Clickity is much more confident with her little LCR.   She even took it in the house when she got home.   The only person that didn't have a good time was the cold and timid soul that didn't go. 

This blog is by two guys who shoot a lot less than they like, reload a lot less than they want and needed an excuse to do more of both. One lives someplace out to the left of the big river and one lives in what used to be Florida. I'm the Florida one. Buckshot lived here for a while and then went back where he belonged. "Lantry" is a pseudonym. If you've read South Moon Under you know "where I'm from." If not, don't worry. It ain't there no more anyhow. (Well, actually, THAT specific place is still there and I'm told it can be bought for less than $500,000. I'm not kidding).

Hopefully, somebody somewhere will find some of this interesting or informative as the posts start piling up. If not, well, we started it to make ourselves shoot and reload more so who cares! We'll be at the range and the bench more and that's really what its all about.

I might start tinkering with a low pressure load for a 12 gauge Fox Sterlingworth that I don't want to shoot to pieces or I might play around with a 50 Beowulf that followed me home one day. I might work on a nice .358 Winchester load or my Savage Model 99 or I might use the blog as an excuse to buy that one at Bullseye Sports in .303 Savage so I can write about that. Maybe I'll start with the range I'm trying to get my buddy up in Daisey to let me build on his mini farm. You'll know as soon as I do. Maybe sooner.

One thing I do know is that Buckshot will hit his goal. I hope he uses Nosler or Weatherby headstamped brass since it has always held more powder for me than other brands. I just hope I don't have to send him any of mine to get it done.