Saturday, August 28, 2010

Travelin' thoughts...


Boy, Vale is a long way from home, almost in Idaho. As I was driving I kept thinking about how to get more people shooting firearms, safely and accurately. I think that the culture is against me and them that like to shoot. I want the schools open for firearms again, I want Rifle Clubs back in them. Why isn't the NRA and CMP working on getting the laws changed again?

Something to write more about another day. I did get to Vale, find the range and meet up with my Shoot Boss Pa Rah, met the Director of the Range, and two of the shooters for tomorrow. I was just listening and talking - listening mostly, I don't know enough about some things except to say, hmmm. Pa Rah was going to try out his 1000 yard rifle, he built it on an AR-10, and so on the 25 meter range he checked his scope for alignment. Then he thought I should shoot it, duh, me? I am one of those that say if it doesn't have wood it can't have a soul, but I was willing enough to try. A couple of sighting squares, lessons in adjusting scopes to Earl's better than Pa Rah's eyes, amazing what I don't know about anything. What I did know is that big steel Bison on the hillside way out there - I wanted to shoot that. So we dialed up the scope, adjusted the bipods and I settled into long range fun.

With some good spotting and some tuning of the settings I was starting to hit the steel. Now I have selective hearing with my wife's admonishments, but I also don't have great hearing and with muffs on I never heard the ring of the hit on the steel. Sigh, but I was assured that it was a dead buffalo after about six or seven hits, I had trouble trying to hit the fox about a hundred meters closer, but it wasn't a great beast and I wouldn't have hit it anyway. Ethan took over and fired the bison up, too. Said I had dialed it in well, thanks. I did get a shot of his shooting since I hadn't time to take pictures of me as I blazed away - one round at a time. Fun stuff.

Slept the night away until the coyotes started up in the morning, but I was worried about Grizzly bears (not). Stuff bags for sleeping bags, with a GoreTex camocover I wonder why I put up the tent (which I have forgotten how to do properly), best practice at home soon.

1 comment:

Old NFO said...

Long range IS a different animal Earl, if they were calling hits, then you were hitting! I agree that we need to bring back the HS shooting teams, and I too wonder what happened to the NRA...