BruceB
09-05-2007, 10:50 PM
The ol' Schuetzenwagen is almost as bad as my shop.
That is, it accumulates "stuff" at a rate which astonishes me, and among the accumulation are HUNDREDS of assorted rounds which for some reason never got fired. The piles of blue Midway ammo boxes got close to life-threatening dimensions, so today I flung a bunch of rifles in the van and set out to "recover" some of that idle brass.
I fired about 280 rounds of '06 (M700, 36X Tasco), 240 rounds of .303 ("Miz Liz", my gorgeous new-condition #4 Mk2, Parker Hale 5C sight), 130 rounds of .30-40 (NRA Krag "Sporter), about 200 rounds of 7.62x39 (Ruger 77, Bushnell 3-9X), and I put 90 .338s through my Savage 116 with Loopy 3-9X.
There were some hot barrels, by George, even though the weather was a refreshing change from the kiln it's been for weeks.
The site was Mr. Piquet's gravel pit, where we held the Nevada Shoot this year. Setting up at 200 yards, I fired some of the stuff from prone and sitting off my Dillon range mat...a very nice accessory. Mostly, I shot from the van's benchrest, and I discovered something: No matter WHAT load I happened to be firing, and there were many, many different ones contained in those round counts above, no matter the load, they ALL yielded enough "accuracy" at 200 yards to make for some real fun plinking.
Didn't even post a target today, just fired at twigs, stones, bunchgrass etc etc....and it was fun. I twiddled adjustments with complete abandon, chasing impacts all over the backstop. Even Miz Liz with her iron sights was nailing small clumps of grass etc with gratifying regularity....with three different bullet designs.
For "just fun" shooting, maybe I need to recalibrate my intensity level in developing "accuracy loads". To paraphrase the old statement that "Speed is fine, but accuracy is fatal," I might just adopt my own version: "Accuracy is fine, but SHOOTING is FUN!"
I'm gonna have to remember that.
The next "leftovers" trip will be a tad more strenuous, because I did the easy half today. On the menu will be the .404, .416 Rigby, and .45-70, as well as 7.62 NATO and .32 Special, and a couple others I noticed in the piles as well.
Some of this ammo had been in the van for over two full years or more, through at least two blazing Nevada summers with in-vehicle temps surely reaching the 120s if not more. Once again, to my great pleasure, not a single round showed any irregularity or weakness after that horrible treatment. It tends to give one confidence, it does.
That is, it accumulates "stuff" at a rate which astonishes me, and among the accumulation are HUNDREDS of assorted rounds which for some reason never got fired. The piles of blue Midway ammo boxes got close to life-threatening dimensions, so today I flung a bunch of rifles in the van and set out to "recover" some of that idle brass.
I fired about 280 rounds of '06 (M700, 36X Tasco), 240 rounds of .303 ("Miz Liz", my gorgeous new-condition #4 Mk2, Parker Hale 5C sight), 130 rounds of .30-40 (NRA Krag "Sporter), about 200 rounds of 7.62x39 (Ruger 77, Bushnell 3-9X), and I put 90 .338s through my Savage 116 with Loopy 3-9X.
There were some hot barrels, by George, even though the weather was a refreshing change from the kiln it's been for weeks.
The site was Mr. Piquet's gravel pit, where we held the Nevada Shoot this year. Setting up at 200 yards, I fired some of the stuff from prone and sitting off my Dillon range mat...a very nice accessory. Mostly, I shot from the van's benchrest, and I discovered something: No matter WHAT load I happened to be firing, and there were many, many different ones contained in those round counts above, no matter the load, they ALL yielded enough "accuracy" at 200 yards to make for some real fun plinking.
Didn't even post a target today, just fired at twigs, stones, bunchgrass etc etc....and it was fun. I twiddled adjustments with complete abandon, chasing impacts all over the backstop. Even Miz Liz with her iron sights was nailing small clumps of grass etc with gratifying regularity....with three different bullet designs.
For "just fun" shooting, maybe I need to recalibrate my intensity level in developing "accuracy loads". To paraphrase the old statement that "Speed is fine, but accuracy is fatal," I might just adopt my own version: "Accuracy is fine, but SHOOTING is FUN!"
I'm gonna have to remember that.
The next "leftovers" trip will be a tad more strenuous, because I did the easy half today. On the menu will be the .404, .416 Rigby, and .45-70, as well as 7.62 NATO and .32 Special, and a couple others I noticed in the piles as well.
Some of this ammo had been in the van for over two full years or more, through at least two blazing Nevada summers with in-vehicle temps surely reaching the 120s if not more. Once again, to my great pleasure, not a single round showed any irregularity or weakness after that horrible treatment. It tends to give one confidence, it does.