reasonablenut

The Old Man bought a new pistol this week. This one is a weird one, in that it is chambered in .45 Long Colt and also accommadateds a .410 shot shell. The cylinder on this thing is enormously long and only holds five shots.

The Old Man thinks this will be a blue quail killer. I agree, if the the bird flushes whithin 15 yards or so. I don't have much experience with .410 shells, being kind of a 12 gauge simple fucker.

Nonetheless, we are taking it out tomorrow to see what kind of spread the .410 gets at different ranges.

Only question is, .45 LC seems to be available with mostly lead cast bullets. Is there any problem with using a jacketed semi-wadcutter in a configuration like this? We don't like lead.

The Taurus 4410. One of the weirder pistols I've ever seen. 

A) Apologies for the picture posts below. Depending on the OS and the browser, they either show up, can be clicked and viewed, or are otherwise just fucked.

Mirage is one of the aspects of long range shooting that has long fascinated me. From the time I started trying to get past 200 yards, it has been problematic. In the southwest, mirage takes three shapes: left to right, right to left, and a boil. We deal with this shit 11 months out of the year. When it's that bad, it's an optical illusion that may put the target as far as 6 feet from what you view as the target. It's a commonly held belief, down here, that shooting into a boil is just wasting ammo.

Mirages also come in all shapes and sizes. Left to right mirages may also boil badly, leaving you with just a SWAG as to what the actual location of the target is. Before Boomershoot, the Old Man and I were practicing mil-holds. This is challenging with wind, but with hardass mirage, it is Herculean.

On a bad boil, a spotter can watch the trace of the bullet up until about 20 feet before the target. At that point, trace disappears and you have no way of knowing where the bullet hit, unless you get audio feedback. Basically, you will get a half of an hour where your spotter is calling "No Call."

This is my experience in New Mexico. Now let's move to the Northwest.

One exercise that we performed up there was trying to recognize mirage. At the mere proposition of this lesson, I felt like taking a nap in the truck. Nonetheless, I partook. Now seeing that I hadn't ever seen any mirage in Idaho (I've only gone for 2 years), I was a bit curious as to what the instructor would say about a range with no effective mirage. I was not disappointed.

One gentleman at the clinic did not even know what the fuck mirage looked like. That's a sheltered life. We lined up with spotting scopes and the instructor advised us to focus on a 400 yard target. Well and good. I accomplished that task in 30 seconds. Next up, he told us to dial back (this point can't be made enough: you dial back not forward the focus) the focus to about 20 feet in front of the target. I did this, not expecting to be impressed. Once he told me I should see mirage, I put my viddie back into the lens. Sure as shit, there was the most subtle mirage I had ever seen, serenely floating from left to right.

I realized I could actually determine wind direction and speed, at the target, based off of this. Holy Cow.

The question is, what's the defining line between mirage that is helpful and mirage that is detrimental? I still have not been able to learn shit from a New Mexico boil.

FIRE 

Explosives and petrol do some pretty impressive shit. 

Over the last couple of days, I've been busy.

In the mean time I am going to revise my most popular Google post of all time. I'm a little less ignorant than when I wrote this post, and it has provided stimulating comments for over a year. The .30-06 vis-a-vis the .308 argument will never be resolved to the satisfaction of both parties.

I will hopefully post an update by the weekend, but in the mean time, I'm posting another Boomershoot pic.

Enjoy.

Porta's Cat had a very brilliant post a couple of days ago. He supposed a situation that people seldom think about when it comes to arms, self-defense, and, especially, CCW. He makes a point I've seldom seen made: shit is inherently dangerous when firearms are introduced.

Insofar as CCW, people seem to always assume that they will be the only armed civilians in a situation; this is a grave error.

I'm not as well spoken as the man, so go read it. And read Rummel's follow-up. And, as always these days, Xavier pretty well wraps it.

I meant to come back from Idaho with a present for the girlfriend. I felt a little bad. Joe's shit is all online. Outside of Boomershoot, Orofino doesn't have much to offer in the case of trinkets or chick-shit.

As such, I had to wait to get her a present until I got back. This means it showed up today. Below is a photo.

I was overly nice, in that, I also scored her a Billy Batts t-shirt. If my memory serves, I think there was also an f-word in there (not "filibuster.")

I'm not sure that any reader can answer this, but I recently purchased a Turner sling. I have received myriad advice on the how to cure and treat it initially. Needless to say, I want a little more advice before I proceed to fuck up a perfectly good piece of leather.

Mine's tan; this one is identical, except black.

Kevin at Cerebral Misfire is back. I will be re-adding him to my blogroll at some point, even though he never bothered setting his roll up. What can I say; I'm a benevolent guy.

Analog Kid and David managed to miss Boomershoot, but David attended another wacko shoot.

I was a little lackluster in my first post.

Day one, I was shooting the Browning .300 WSM. I did alright with it outside of shifting it onto my collar bone, every once in a while. That can be a bad thing.

Accuracy was good and by the "DAY" I was detonating out to 650 yards.

Second day of the clinic was much more educational. I learned about shit you can do with a sling that I never thought possible. Unfortunately, I had, for all intents and purposes, blown out my shoulder on the first day.

The Old Man did slightly better. The M1A provided less recoil and held the zero like a champ. He shot through the clinic, but also experienced some fatigue on the "DAY." I probably detonated more shit with his rifle than I did mine.

Of course, there was the contrary little shit. On day 2 of the clinic, he had a 6" target that would not bow. I have no idea how many rounds he spent trying to obliterate the bastard, but it wasn't enough. Next up I did the same thing. We were both doing hits within an inch of the sumbitch, but just couldn't get it on.

As such, we chose to relinquish our obsession to another willing soul. That soul happened to be the President's 100 fellow I mentioned in the previous post. As it was only at 400 yards, he tried to take it down with a .45-70 lever. Much the same, he was all over it and couldn't punch the little fucker. A little later he took the obstinate fuck out with a .300 WSM. I was just glad it was dead.

Below is the Old Man's favorite pic. The tongue of flame is, what I think, attracted his attention.

Bombing up to Idaho from New Mexico took about 19 hours; we basically never stopped driving except for gas.

Then there was a day off. We ate breakfast at Krystal's, bought beer at the IGF, and bought an alarm clock at the Radio Shack dealer.

Next day, we were into clinic. One of the military fellows from last year returned (Outside of Econ) and it was a warm greeting. He's had a daughter in the mean time and she looks gorgeous based on the pictures.

All the fundamentals the old man and I have been practicing for the last year paid off. We held with mils, not MOA, and did quite well.

The picture below depicts me spotting for a member of the President's 100. Enjoy the ass. (FYI, I'm the fucker on the left)

Explosive pictures will follow.



Probably the only picture you will ever see of me.