On The Fence about Attending GBR VIII?
If you haven't made up your mind about attending this year's Gun Blogger Rendezvous coming up in September in Reno, perhaps this video will help you make up your mind........
If you haven't made up your mind about attending this year's Gun Blogger Rendezvous coming up in September in Reno, perhaps this video will help you make up your mind........
True Blue Sam put together a video showing some of the raffle items and door prizes from last year's Gun blogger Rendezvous. This year we are planning on having even MORE cool stuff for our raffle and door prizes.
This last weekend was the weekend when our local fishing club has its annual trip to banks Lake. Banks Lake is a 27 mile long lake in Eastern Washington, very close to grand Coulee dam. In fact, banks Lake is the equalizing reservoir for grand Coulee dam. Banks Lake is 600 feet higher in elevation than the lake behind grand Coulee dam. At times when electrical demand is low, grand Coulee dam pumps immense amounts of water into banks Lake. When additional electricity is needed, water is taken back out from banks Lake and dropped through the turbines to produce additional electricity. Banks Lake is also the irrigation water source for much of eastern Washington and the Coulee basin irrigation project. Banks Lake has a large population of many species of fish, including rainbow trout, walleye, large mouth bass, small mouth bass, yellow perch, crappies, Burbot, and probably a few other species of fish that I don't even know about.
He was getting old and paunchy
And his hair was falling fast,
And he sat around the Legion,
Telling stories of the past.
Of a war that he once fought in
And the deeds that he had done,
In his exploits with his buddies;
They were heroes, every one.
And 'tho sometimes to his neighbors
His tales became a joke,
All his buddies listened quietly
For they knew where of he spoke.
But we'll hear his tales no longer,
For ol' Joe has passed away,
And the world's a little poorer
For a Veteran died today.
He won't be mourned by many,
Just his children and his wife.
For he lived an ordinary,
Very quiet sort of life.
He held a job and raised a family,
Going quietly on his way;
And the world won't note his passing,
'Tho a Veteran died today.
When politicians leave this earth,
Their bodies lie in state,
While thousands note their passing,
And proclaim that they were great.
Papers tell of their life stories
From the time that they were young
But the passing of a Veteran
Goes unnoticed, and unsung.
Is the greatest contribution
To the welfare of our land,
Some jerk who breaks his promise
And cons his fellow man?
Or the ordinary fellow
Who in times of war and strife,
Goes off to serve his country
And offers up his life?
The politician's stipend
And the style in which he lives,
Are often disproportionate,
To the service that he gives.
While the ordinary Veteran,
Who offered up his all,
Is paid off with a medal
And perhaps a pension, small.
It is not the politicians
With their compromise and ploys,
Who won for us the freedom
That our country now enjoys.
Should you find yourself in danger,
With your enemies at hand,
Would you really want some cop-out,
With his ever waffling stand?
Or would you want a Veteran
His home, his country, his kin,
Just a common Veteran,
Who would fight until the end
He was just a common Veteran,
And his ranks are growing thin,
But his presence should remind us
We may need his likes again.
For when countries are in conflict,
We find the Veteran's part
Is to clean up all the troubles
That the politicians start.
If we cannot do him honor
While he's here to hear the praise,
Then at least let's give him homage
At the ending of his days.
Perhaps just a simple headline
In the paper that might say:
"OUR COUNTRY IS IN MOURNING,
A VETERAN DIED TODAY."
There's a great new video on Molly Smith.
I've got so much news and so much going on it's hard to tell exactly where to start. I guess I could start with an update about the trip to Holland and the European steel challenge championships a few weeks ago. I had planned to get as much sleep as possible before leaving for Holland, but unfortunately, that's not how it worked out. When I got on the shuttle bus for the 1 1/2 hour ride from would be island to the Seattle-Tacoma airport I was already pretty tired. The ride to the airport, several hours wait in the Seattle Airport, and a 10 hour flight to Amsterdam didn't help much either. Fortunately, the flight itself was mostly just boring. I am not real crazy about the Airbus airplane to start with, but at least it reached Amsterdam without anything breaking or falling off, at least, nothing that I could see.
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| Mt. Vernon I-5 Skagit River Bridge. Photo credit KING TV. |
I recently got an email asking for my opinion on several .22's for steel shooting at the higher levels of competition. After I finished answering the question, I decided that there are others who might like to read the answers too, so here it is. Please note that I am only discussing specific models, and there are other good .22 out there too.
KC Eusebio, shooting for Team GLOCK, won the European Steel Championships held this last weekend in Winterswijk, Holland. ESC13, as it is called, is one of the largest, if not the largest steel match in the world, with over 200 entries and many countries represented.
I heard that the pollen count is so high this Spring that the druggies are trying to change their meth back into Sudafed.......
It's been really busy around here lately, and combining that with not having much to say, the result is a pretty quiet blog. There are now so many great bloggers out there, just about anything I think of to blog about, someone else already had the same thoughts and wrote a great post about it! Rather than turning the blog into a blog aggregator, just linking to those other blog posts, and considering how little time I've got available, I will be posting far less often, at least for a while.
Even though it's early in the year and the weather outside isn't as pleasant as it is a bit later into spring, we still had a good turnout for our March e-Postal Match, "The Mess - Revisited". Both Billl and Carteach turned in some spectacular scores, with only 3 points separating them! WOW! Very nice shooting
| NAME | CLASS | GUN | CAL | SCORE |
| Billll | 1 | Ruger Mk. 1 | .2LR | 188 |
| Carteach | 1 | S&W K-22 | .22LR | 185 |
| danno | 1 | Ruger 22/45 | .22LR | 85 |
| Mike B | 1 | Ruger Mk. 1 | .22LR | 79 |
| True Blue Sam | 1 | Ruger Single Six | .22LR | 70 |
| danno | 1 | Ruger Single Six | .22LR | 17 |
| Mr. CCBCC | 1 | Ruger Single Six | .22LR | 15 |
| Mr. CCBCC | 1 | Ruger 22/45 | .22LR | 15 |
| Mr. Completely | 2 | High Std / OKO Dot | .22LR | 250 |
| True Blue Sam | 2 | Ruger Mk III / Red Dot | .22LR | 125 |
| Mrs True Blue Sam | 2 | Ruger Mk III / Red Dot | .22LR | 45 |
| Mr. CCBCC | 3 | Browning Hi-Power | 9mm. | 10 |
| danno | 3 | Browning Hi-Power | 9mm. | 0 |
| Mike B | 5 | Ruger SP 101 | .38SPL | 41 |
| Patrick Butler | 5 | Colt Det. Special | .38SPL | 25 |
| Mr. Completely | 7 | High Standard / Leupold | .22LR | 190 |
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| West Side Whidbey Island Landslide. Pic. from Seattle Times |
The e-Postal match to start out the 2013 season is going to be interesting, to say the least! None of those boring old concentric circles for us, by golly! I'm sure that some of you will apply yourselves and figure out a strategy for shooting this mess, but I've got no idea exactly how you should approach it. Should you go for the high value areas and risk getting penalized if you miss, or should you play it safe with the lower value spots? Who knows?
Spring is not so far down the road, and with Spring comes a new season of Steel Shooting. Here's a video from last year's West Coast Steel Championships in Piru, California on American Trigger Sports Network to get you pumped up about the new season!
Every so often I get an unsolicited email like this one, but somehow this one is even farther out there than most!
I suppose I am going to get part
In response to my previous post about "Weaponized Fish" a commenter suggested this video:
According to the FBI, the number one weapon in murders is some sort of blunt instrument. A club, hammer, or bludgeon of some sort.
Early on Saturday morning it didn't look too bad weather-wise, with a bit of blue sky peeking through in places. A lot of shooters got up, looked at the sky, and decided to come and shoot the match on Saturday. However, it was a trick! By match time it was raining, and it rained all day. Fortunately it wasn't too cold, just wet. Sunday morning was the opposite. Right after dawn it looked lousy, with low clouds, fog, and rain. On top of that, it was cold. I think a lot of shooters had a look at the weather early Sunday morning, and went back to bed. Again, it was a trick! By match time, even though it was a little colder, it stopped raining, and held off just about all day. We got a little drizzle, but that was about it. Everyone stayed home on Sunday, except for a few of us die-hards! Even so, we all had a great time, and didn't get wet, like on Saturday.
| # | Name | Class | stg 1 | stg 2 | stg 3 | stg 4 | stg 5 | stg 6 | total |
| 1 | Mike Gallion | RF-O | 10.54 | 11.61 | 12.44 | 13.90 | 12.84 | 9.88 | 71.21 |
| 2 | Larry Davis | RF-O | 11.70 | 11.95 | 13.79 | 15.81 | 14.84 | 10.11 | 78.20 |
| 3 | Blake Koszarek | RF-R | 13.05 | 13.20 | 13.72 | 16.98 | 12.03 | 11.69 | 80.67 |
| 4 | Larry Davis | RF-I | 13.40 | 12.40 | 15.58 | 19.21 | 15.70 | 12.77 | 89.06 |
| 5 | Jennifer Kelly | RF-O | 14.77 | 18.37 | 17.87 | 24.34 | 23.09 | 15.85 | 114.29 |
| 6 | Steve Blazina | RF-I | 21.17 | 23.19 | 23.14 | 26.82 | 20.10 | 14.53 | 128.95 |
| 7 | Steve Blazina | CF-P | 27.80 | 24.38 | 29.04 | 27.96 | 21.69 | 18.04 | 148.91 |
| 8 | Russ Blazina | RF-I | 57.72 | 41.83 | 45.34 | 67.84 | 39.12 | 120.00 | 371.85 |
| 9 | Russ Blazina | CF-LR | 58.91 | 57.99 | 99.82 | 89.03 | 60.91 | 120.00 | 486.66 |
| Name | Class | stg 1 | stg 2 | stg 3 | stg 4 | stg 5 | stg 6 | total | |
| 1 | Mike Gallion | RF-O | 11.08 | 11.11 | 12.77 | 16.23 | 12.07 | 11.57 | 74.83 |
| 2 | Steve Mooney | RF-R | 14.78 | 10.72 | 14.74 | 17.53 | 12.46 | 10.22 | 80.45 |
| 3 | Larry Davis | RF-O | 16.67 | 12.87 | 11.62 | 14.33 | 13.07 | 12.09 | 80.65 |
| 4 | Blake Koszarek | RF-R | 17.15 | 11.55 | 15.09 | 12.98 | 12.49 | 12.48 | 81.74 |
| 5 | Steve Mooney | RF-O | 14.54 | 12.72 | 15.90 | 14.83 | 14.30 | 11.12 | 83.41 |
| 6 | Mac McInerney | RF-R | 13.72 | 16.63 | 15.50 | 17.27 | 14.80 | 11.27 | 89.19 |
| 7 | John Davidson | RF-O | 16.08 | 15.98 | 17.50 | 17.74 | 15.72 | 11.29 | 94.31 |
| 8 | Larry Davis | RF-I | 16.39 | 17.80 | 16.41 | 17.75 | 16.98 | 10.71 | 96.04 |
| 9 | Mark McDaniel | RF-O | 14.33 | 15.00 | 23.44 | 21.69 | 18.55 | 13.75 | 106.76 |
| 10 | Thomas Alldredge | RF-I | 17.48 | 21.21 | 19.64 | 19.35 | 17.81 | 13.45 | 108.94 |
| 11 | Mac McInerney | RF-O | 19.34 | 16.02 | 25.17 | 19.64 | 17.05 | 13.09 | 110.31 |
| 12 | John Davidson | CF-P | 16.93 | 18.73 | 22.40 | 20.32 | 15.56 | 23.69 | 117.63 |
| 13 | Dan Lavaty | RF-R | 19.20 | 20.07 | 20.41 | 26.18 | 18.59 | 16.50 | 120.95 |
| 14 | Dan Lavaty | RF-O | 18.01 | 21.62 | 22.36 | 23.79 | 20.02 | 15.74 | 121.54 |
| 15 | Thomas Alldredge | CF-P | 19.14 | 20.39 | 24.11 | 19.97 | 19.75 | 19.34 | 122.70 |
| 16 | Allen Vautier | RF-I | 21.03 | 17.80 | 24.89 | 23.36 | 23.11 | 16.07 | 126.26 |
| 17 | Jeff Proctor | RF-I | 23.82 | 22.11 | 25.79 | 30.58 | 21.53 | 15.26 | 139.09 |
| 18 | Thomas Alldredge | REV-I | 20.07 | 31.28 | 32.86 | 29.12 | 27.09 | 25.67 | 166.09 |
| 19 | Dave Ihnen | REV-I | 31.09 | 34.76 | 30.52 | 33.87 | 27.23 | 45.39 | 202.86 |
| 20 | Dave Shupe | RF-O | 18.59 | 120.00 | 19.46 | 19.37 | 19.90 | 15.77 | 213.09 |
| 21 | Dave Ihnen | REV-I | 30.65 | 29.34 | 17.47 | 37.03 | 62.77 | 38.45 | 215.71 |
| 22 | Jim Dyment | CF-P | 60.02 | 41.93 | 56.72 | 40.11 | 40.63 | 37.30 | 276.71 |
| 23 | Jim Montgomery | RF-I | 63.84 | 42.18 | 79.18 | 44.77 | 48.99 | 29.04 | 308.00 |
| 24 | Steve Murphy | RF-I | 60.41 | 38.18 | 47.17 | 68.64 | 59.67 | 34.70 | 308.77 |
| 25 | Dave Shupe | CF-P | 120.00 | 120.00 | 40.44 | 43.07 | 33.08 | 26.70 | 383.29 |
| 26 | Mike Muzos | RF-I | 47.84 | 89.13 | 53.76 | 104.08 | 39.12 | 51.59 | 385.52 |
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