Sunday, January 20, 2008

January Range Report

My Buddy the Gun Enthusiast and I and his son went to Clark Brothers gun range on Saturday. It's been too long.







I tried shifting the point of aim of the .22 over. Shift right. You see it grouping to the left of the bull. But I still felt rushed. I need to CONCENTRATE better when I 'zero.' And truly zero. Not just fart around. Part of the problem is Clark Bros. is usually pretty crowded. Hard to concentrate on a target you can barely see with binoculars and have no freedom to go look at.



But at least I am grouping in an area you can cover with a tuna can at 25 yards. The target on the right was the last one of the day. The target on the left shows the initial forays, (and you can even see 3 holes from the Garand.) Jay G can cover HIS group with a quarter. Or nickel. Squirrel head size. Mine is more woodchuck body size. IF I center it better. Jay G would eat better than me in the woods. I was more pleased with group size, considering how rust I am. It is truly a joy shooting that .22. Except the bolt's firing pin kept relaxing, Not snapping and firing, but just sorta moving to the up position after cycling the bolt. When I got it all home I disassemble and cleaned up all the bolt parts I could get to. It's a very simple mechanism in the Mossberg 144.


And I know it's the .22 rifle and not me because the Garand, which I've made some additions to that have definitely tightened up the fit of receiver to stock. The Garand shoots the in OPPOSITE direction, and I have to shift it left. I'll wait until I mount the scope on it before worrying too much, but I must remember to do iron sights AND scope when I do get it. I should just order that now. What's the URL for Opticsplanet.com? Oh... Right.




But I did get rid of the last of the .308 ammo I had, at least. All my stuff is 7.62x51 now



MBtGE brought his son, and his pink mowhawk hairdo. The boy got some polite, appreciative looks. It's quite majestic. I keep forgetting to remember that he may look strange to others. And he shoots that .38 snubby better than I do.




I mentioned it was crowded. We figured on less people since there was snow on the ground, it's cold, and it's after hunting season. But it was majority milsurp rifles there Saturday. In guy with a Russian bolt action had a broken extractor that would jam the bolt up after every shot. There was a couple ARs. An AK styled rifle or two. A few WWII era bolt action rifles, including a nice enfield. And some guy was showing his girlfriend how to fire a .30-30 lever action. It was fun.

2 comments:

Jay G said...

1. Love the mohawk. Take LOTS of pictures with which to embarass him down the road.

2a. I blush at the praise. I seem to be MUCH better at shooting rifles than handguns, which is odd because I've been shooting handguns a lot longer.

2b. To fair, I *did* hand-pick the target I posted... *g*

3. Had you seen some of the targets I shot this past weekend, your opinion might have been different... :O

4. The only way to get better is to practice, practice, practice.

And that's the fun part.

Next week? Practical (read: carry gun) shooting...

Anonymous said...

Clark Bros.? In Warrenton? I'm in Alexandria. I sighted in my Garand there last September. We oughta get some NoVA gun bloggers (and their readers) together and do sumpin'.