Alan in Vermont
11-08-2012, 11:22 PM
Last Saturday I attended the annual Pig Roast/Shooting Session that a friend of mine puts on. Last year we had good weather and a bunch of new shooters and were not prepared for it.
This year we were prepared for a serious afternoon of making noise and getting folks initiated to firearms. The weather SUCKED!! At no point from 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM did it ever stop some sort of precipitation. Everything from a fine mist to moderate rain with periods of snow. The shooting area w3as muddy, slippery and just plain nasty. Attendance was about 1/3 of what we had last year and only a few diehards ventured out of the heated garage to shoot with us.
Last year we burned through about a case of 12 ga. loads on hand thrown clay pigeons. Only had a 12 ga. 870 for anyone to use, a little bit too much gun for kids and smaller ladies. I had that covered, took the 20 ga. 870 Youth Model with a couple hundred 3/4 oz loads and my M59 Winchester 12 ga. auto, one of the lightest shotguns made and handles recoil very well to boot. Nobody showed one lick of interest in shotgunning.
On the metallic cartridge side of things we did have some interest. We were graced with the presence of one wannabe Mass'hole from southern NH. I'm not sure just how our host knows him, it might be through ballooning but maybe not. Anyhow, he blew in, voice at full throttle and proceeded to impress us hicks with his arsenal. He had three .40 pistols, I think one was a SIG, didn't catch what the other two were, one of them struck me as pretty much a club. He also had some sort of folding .40 carbine, Kel-tec, maybe? I guess it might be OK but I couldn't find a comfortable position to get my eye down to the sights and the way it folds there didn't seem to be any good way to put real sights on it. The best piece he had was a really nice M27 Smith with a Bushnell scope on it. OK,, I've seen scoped revolvers and the gun was in nice shape. Then McBozo showed his knowledge level when I handed it back to him with the cylinder open. He slammed it shut with a flick of his wrist, Joe McCool, impressed the hell outa me. NOT!
We had a couple more 40s there and a couple 9s and I had a few of my revolvers and my old 1911 as well as my 94 and my wife's BL22. I also had a boatload of .40s that I loaded with the loan of casting and loading equipment from members here. There was a bunch of interest in the cast loads in the 30-30 and my cast boolit loads in everything else. Two loads for my Charter Bulldog, made back when it only came in fixed sights on a 3" bbl, two loads for my .41 Blackhawk and light loads for the stainless Security Six. I offered anything I had for anyone to try. Had quite a few takers on the two big bores but none that wanted to try a second cylinder full. Quite a few rounds went through the 45s, another guest had a newer 1911, Series 70, I believe. I offered my ammo to Mr. 40 Cal but he refused to try it, "My guns will only shoot FULL METAL JACKET AMMO. Then he showed me whatever bargain 40 stuff he brought with him. Nose profile was about a perfect match for the Lee 40-175-TC that my stuff was loaded with. We knew it was working in the other guns there, I would have like to confirm that it ran through his, but to no avail.
Some very interesting things we had to shoot at were bulletproof glass and a sheet of 1/2" thick Kevlar armor, looked like a sheet of plywood. Sure didn't act like plywood though. The BP glass was also interesting. Nothing up to my 41 would do anything but crater the impact side. The 41 wou9ld crater the front and also blow a plug out of the back but not make a hole. A second shot in the same place would finally punch a hole as would two shots from a .223. The Kevlar was even more impressive. .40 rounds would only penetrate about half the length of the bullet, leaving the base sticking out. Same with 45 ACP. I finally gnawed a hole through it with the 223 but it took multiple hits in about a hand sized area to finally chew through.
We only had one new shooter and I think he might be easily hooked. Somebody got him started with one of the auto pistols and then he asked about my 94. After a quick safety initiation and explanation of the correct sight picture he broke some balloons and punched a bit of paper. BIG smile!! Someone had brought one of those self-sealing plastic ball targets so I set him up with the BL22, explained the difference in the sights and he kicked that around for a while. We're going to try to hook up so I can take him up to the range and give him some one-on-one instruction. I think he will be one of us at some point.
Anyhow, other than the weather and its side effects it was a pretty good day, even if a bit wet and muddy.
This year we were prepared for a serious afternoon of making noise and getting folks initiated to firearms. The weather SUCKED!! At no point from 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM did it ever stop some sort of precipitation. Everything from a fine mist to moderate rain with periods of snow. The shooting area w3as muddy, slippery and just plain nasty. Attendance was about 1/3 of what we had last year and only a few diehards ventured out of the heated garage to shoot with us.
Last year we burned through about a case of 12 ga. loads on hand thrown clay pigeons. Only had a 12 ga. 870 for anyone to use, a little bit too much gun for kids and smaller ladies. I had that covered, took the 20 ga. 870 Youth Model with a couple hundred 3/4 oz loads and my M59 Winchester 12 ga. auto, one of the lightest shotguns made and handles recoil very well to boot. Nobody showed one lick of interest in shotgunning.
On the metallic cartridge side of things we did have some interest. We were graced with the presence of one wannabe Mass'hole from southern NH. I'm not sure just how our host knows him, it might be through ballooning but maybe not. Anyhow, he blew in, voice at full throttle and proceeded to impress us hicks with his arsenal. He had three .40 pistols, I think one was a SIG, didn't catch what the other two were, one of them struck me as pretty much a club. He also had some sort of folding .40 carbine, Kel-tec, maybe? I guess it might be OK but I couldn't find a comfortable position to get my eye down to the sights and the way it folds there didn't seem to be any good way to put real sights on it. The best piece he had was a really nice M27 Smith with a Bushnell scope on it. OK,, I've seen scoped revolvers and the gun was in nice shape. Then McBozo showed his knowledge level when I handed it back to him with the cylinder open. He slammed it shut with a flick of his wrist, Joe McCool, impressed the hell outa me. NOT!
We had a couple more 40s there and a couple 9s and I had a few of my revolvers and my old 1911 as well as my 94 and my wife's BL22. I also had a boatload of .40s that I loaded with the loan of casting and loading equipment from members here. There was a bunch of interest in the cast loads in the 30-30 and my cast boolit loads in everything else. Two loads for my Charter Bulldog, made back when it only came in fixed sights on a 3" bbl, two loads for my .41 Blackhawk and light loads for the stainless Security Six. I offered anything I had for anyone to try. Had quite a few takers on the two big bores but none that wanted to try a second cylinder full. Quite a few rounds went through the 45s, another guest had a newer 1911, Series 70, I believe. I offered my ammo to Mr. 40 Cal but he refused to try it, "My guns will only shoot FULL METAL JACKET AMMO. Then he showed me whatever bargain 40 stuff he brought with him. Nose profile was about a perfect match for the Lee 40-175-TC that my stuff was loaded with. We knew it was working in the other guns there, I would have like to confirm that it ran through his, but to no avail.
Some very interesting things we had to shoot at were bulletproof glass and a sheet of 1/2" thick Kevlar armor, looked like a sheet of plywood. Sure didn't act like plywood though. The BP glass was also interesting. Nothing up to my 41 would do anything but crater the impact side. The 41 wou9ld crater the front and also blow a plug out of the back but not make a hole. A second shot in the same place would finally punch a hole as would two shots from a .223. The Kevlar was even more impressive. .40 rounds would only penetrate about half the length of the bullet, leaving the base sticking out. Same with 45 ACP. I finally gnawed a hole through it with the 223 but it took multiple hits in about a hand sized area to finally chew through.
We only had one new shooter and I think he might be easily hooked. Somebody got him started with one of the auto pistols and then he asked about my 94. After a quick safety initiation and explanation of the correct sight picture he broke some balloons and punched a bit of paper. BIG smile!! Someone had brought one of those self-sealing plastic ball targets so I set him up with the BL22, explained the difference in the sights and he kicked that around for a while. We're going to try to hook up so I can take him up to the range and give him some one-on-one instruction. I think he will be one of us at some point.
Anyhow, other than the weather and its side effects it was a pretty good day, even if a bit wet and muddy.