Empty-Range Range Trip w/ Blue Bullets 11/9/19

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It’s hunting season up here in the Future State of Jefferson, and the Public Shooting Range nestles between the Sutter Buttes (the world’s smallest mountain range) and the border between the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Cascade Range. Clouds and clouds of rice field geese—Specks, Canada, Snow, all sorts of Wood Ducks and Mallards and so on. Coots. Funny looking birds. All spinning upwards in great balls of spotty chaos, likely deciding where to go have breakfast.

There are still deer around here and the zones are progressing through their lists. Turkeys, Chukar, Pheasant, Grouse. I expected the tables to fill up quickly, and we planned to get there right at sunrise, about 7. So we did.

There was no wind, no clouds, no glare, and no one else but one guy way over there shooting every eight or nine minutes at a 200 meter five spot. Totally sweet conditions.

My son had been having some troubles with his .308 Tikka T3 with a Vortex three turret parallax adjustable illuminated reticle 50 power with a 35mm tube. Spendy, but supposedly 1 MOA out of the box for the rifle, which is their rep. He’s had the rifle for some years and put many the round downrange, but same problem. Cold barrel two shots great third shot flyer. Poor groups for a time after. Then tighter groups. He thought maybe the scope was bad, so this new scope needed to be tested. We were going to test some brands of California-copper and compare them to same weight jacketed lead to see what we could see. He brought a .45, and I took out the Frankenmosin with slow cast boolits for funzies and the .308 Garand to test to new kinds of ammo, Noveske and Ammo Inc.’s Lake City reloads. Brought the Springer with various brands of ammo and the MKII for plinkage with Remington Golden hollow points in the fun size box from like 1997.

A couple at 25 yards to ensure it’s on paper, then move the target out to 100 and let the T3 cool. Then, first cold barrel shot was always great in the Tikka—we had the other guns really to play with as the barrel cooled. Most times each of us could get touching on the second shot. Third shot inch and a half down and left. As it heated up more, the groups opened up. Then when it was pretty warm but not boiling milsurp hot, the groups got tighter.

So, I’ll ask here: what happens to a barrel there, from cold to sort of pretty warm? What happens to the harmonics?

We compared copper to jacketed lead. The copper printed the same groups, but either higher or lower than the jacketed lead. Generally with the same grain weights, the copper printed about ¾ inch high at 100 yards ish.

The easy ammo reports are the .308 Garand. Both Noveske and the Ammo Inc. Lake City shot point of aim and cycled and loaded every round; and the Frankenmosin, where I shot some cast 180 gr boolits over 18.6 grains Unique, also shot point of aim, and they were, I must say, a very pleasant experience—anyone who shoots 180’s in Mosins knows of which I speak.

As it so happens, I have infected my son with the love of reloading. He got some blue 230gr .45acp semi wadcutters, and loaded up a pile. He he—got a squib and we had to take his race gun apart and tap the bad boy out. He’ll put it over his bench to remind to check well. I shot ten or so of them, and they did not chamber well unless I slingshotted the slide. Once they were firing, they cycled fine with good accuracy.

One thing I’d always wanted to do that is frowned upon in indoor ranges is to shoot from the hip. So I brought this hard rubber rimfire target to put out at like seven yards. The blue semi wad cutters put a little blue ring there. Hope it shows up.

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As it turns out, the MKII grip is angled such that I easily could nail that bowling pin from the hip every time. But the Springer has a slightly different angle, and I shot low when I held naturally. Upon correction, easy peasy. But the MKII was natural point of aim from the hip.

Itches scratched on this trip, and tests tested. But best was shootin’ with my son on a nearly empty range in superb conditions. A most excellent day.

Now, with leaves dancing like flames across the treetops pursued by the slightest breeze in the golden hour before sunset, I’m wearing the hoody I shot in, and I can still smell the smoke in it. Sweet.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

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