Halloween Spook...

A couple of days ago a bunch of the gals that work with KeeWee had their Halloween costume party. KeeWee spent several days coming up with all of the accessories, glue-on tatoos, wig, and so forth to be able to dress up "Goth". When Our cat Rocket got his first look I was afraid he was going to go under the bed and not re-appear until Spring!

"Goth" KeeWee...... YIKES!

For those of you of a discerning eye, the necklace is genuine 115 grain .355 diameter 9mm. FMJ. See, around here even Halloween posts turn into gunblogging, one way or the other!

More Pin Shooting From France

I stopped by Manfred's blog, Armes et tir passion, and guess what? Not only are there some great pin shooting videos, but he's also blogging in English when he feels like it, and he's added a Babelfish link that you can click on to go read his previous posts literally translated into English or Spanish.


manfred pin shooting
Uploaded by manfred

That's pretty decent shooting for an iron sight .45, I'd say!

Why not drop by his blog and drop him a comment or so to let him know you stopped by? I'm sure he'd be glad to hear from you.......

Youth Firearm Training in Juneau, Alaska

NOTE: The following story and picture are from the web edition of the October 26th. Juneau (Alaska) Empire.

Photo Credit: David J. Sheakley / Juneau Empire
Jessica Bullman, a sixth grader at Floyd Dryden Middle School, listens to direction from Ernie Mueller, an instructor at the Juneau Hunter Education Facility and Indoor Shooting Range, on Wednesday as part of a school field trip.

The science of shooting
Sixth graders learn outdoor skills in school

By ERIC MORRISON
JUNEAU EMPIRE

Most American children don't learn how to properly handle and shoot a firearm during school hours, except, that is, in Juneau.

For six years, Floyd Dryden (Middle School ... Mr. C.) has been offering its Outdoor Skills program to all sixth graders as part of its curriculum. The children are taughtdifferent aspects of outdoor safety in Alaska, from orienteering and marksmanship to wildlife conservation and appropriate outdoor clothing, Principal Tom Milliron said.

"We're proud that we're exposing so many kids to what is potentially a life-saving program," he said.

While many of the students have some background in firearm safety from growing up on the Last Frontier, some of them have never held or shot a gun before.

"I felt kind of scared at first, but then when I started shooting a couple of rounds it was really fun," said 11-year-old Isaac Christensen, who shot a gun Wednesday for his first time.

Students learn about etiquette and safety prior to stepping into the Juneau Hunter Education Facility and Indoor Shooting Range to shoot .22-caliber rifles under direct supervision of certified volunteer firearm instructors.

"The excitement and the sense of accomplishment that the kids get who have never shot a firearm before is just astounding and then when they realize that they had the control over the firearm to hit near or on the bull's-eye, they just become ecstatic," Range Manager Frank Zmuda said.

Jessica Bullman was one of the first-time shooters surprised and excited to get a bull's-eye Tuesday.

"It was a pretty powerful gun," she said. "It kicks back, but I think it's pretty easy."

The students learn to shoot in three positions, standing, kneeling and sitting.

"Kneeling was the most fun," Bullman said.

Eleven-year-old Marisa Guizio said shooting a rifle was more difficult than she expected.

"It was really scary," she said. "I didn't know how to do it, and my gun, since it was a left-handed brand new gun, it was really hard to like turn the safety on and pull the bolt up."

Milliron said the kids take away more from the experience than just fond memories.

"Not only is it an exciting experience for the kids who have never shot a firearm, but also it gives them the understanding of the need to always be safety-conscious when around a firearm," he said.

It is beneficial for the children to learn how to properly handle and be around guns in a controlled environment that has a heavy emphasis on education, Milliron said.

"Whether students have firearms at home or not, they're going to eventually be exposed to firearms at a friend's house or elsewhere in the community and it's important for them to know how to be safe," he said.

Milliron said 168 students participated in the nearly weeklong course this year and he estimates 1,200 students have gone through the training in the program's six years. Each student who passes the field course phase, marksmanship phase and a written test will receive a hunter education card from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The card is recognized in all 50 states.

Christensen, who has plans to go hunting with his father in a few weeks, said he will always remember learning how to shoot a gun.

"I think this will be one of the best times of my life," he said.

Click here to read the original story on the Juneau Empire website (Registration required) . The entire story is shown above to save the Empire's bandwidth.

Home From The Range.....

The weather and the weather forecast weren't very promising this morning when KeeWee and I headed North to the bowling Pin Match at Central Whidbey Sportsman's range. Worse yet, the closer we got, the worse the weather looked. Dark clouds, high winds, rain, all the stuff you don't want at an outdoor pistol match!

The qualifying rounds started out wet and soggy, then it started to dry out, but that didn't last very long. We got through the centerfire classes without getting too wet, only cold. Numb fingers don't help much at a pin shoot!

Evil Al was in top form today, and the rest of us looked kinda like chumps when we came up against him. Actually, we weren't ALL that slow, Al was just having a pretty good day.

I was feeling fairly good in the Optical Sight Centerfire class as the Taurus 9mm. 'Econo Race Gun' was finally starting to be competitive. I timed in fairly well, but that put me up against Al right away. I mamaged to beat him on one table, but he got the other two, knocking me out of the class.

I don't think Al lost more than two or three tables all day. I got him once in centerfire, once in Optical rimfire, and LouG got him for one table in revolver, I think. Beyond that Al was pretty much unbeatable, winning every class he entered, and he entered most of them!

In revolver qualifying I had a terrible time, as I was hitting the pins, but they weren't going off the table. Al pointed out that I was hitting them low and kicking the bottom back, which would leave them on the table. I suspect the scope has drifted a bit, so I moved the point of aim up a bit and it worked a lot better. Unfortunately I met up with young Tony (remember him?) in the first round and he turned me into a spectator without too much trouble. In revolver class Tony was the only one to put much pressure on Al, but al knocked him out too, to win the class.

Once we started qualifying for rimfire, it had really started to rain. Not only was it pouring down, the wind was blowing it sideways, so even under the covered areas it was still wet! We finally took a break and went into the clubhouse to wait for it to subside a bit.

After a short wait the rain had slowed a bit and we headed back to the pin range to finish rimfire qualifying and shoot the rimfire matches. Shooting my High Standard and my S&W422 in optical class, I qualified 2nd. and 3rd., with you know who (AL!) having the fastest time. That means I got to shoot against Al in the first round again! We tied on the first table, I might have won one, but Al won two tables to retire the High Standard. With the Smith & Wesson I came up against the #4 qualifier, LouG. I managed to advance past Lou, but there's Al AGAIN! I screwed up the first table, and got close on the second, but once again, Al knocked me out. SHEEESHHH! Al ended up shooting in the final against JimP, but Al continued doing what he'd been doing all day, to take the win. KeeWee ran into Jim in the first round and put a little pressure on him, but eventually got knocked out too.

After rimfire optical class was over, all that was left was rimfire iron sight class, and there were only two of us signed up, Jim and I. I think the horrible weather kept a lot of shooters home today. Jim and I had already run through our qualifying tables, so it was between Jim and I for the class win. Jim and I decided to make it 3 out of 5 instead of 2 out of 3 so we could get in a little more shooting. When Jim and I suggested that we wanted to change it to 17 out of 33 we almost started a small riot!

We swapped table wins back and forth until it was 2 tables each, and it was down to the final table. Everyone else was wet and cold and wanted to go home, but Jim and I were having a lot of fun! Wet and cold, numb fingers, water running down my glasses along with the fogged up lenses, it's amazing we hit anything at all! It certainly was no show of shooting prowess, but I narrowly managed to win the fifth and final table.

Al kinda summed the match up when he walked by and remarked, " ....... if nothing else, at least you two are sure entertaining!"

I decided to split my class winnings for first place with Jim as I figure he deserved it!

A buck for him and a buck for me, hard earned to say the least...............

Weather Sucks - Go Shoot Anyway!

Here's the weather in Seattle at 7:30am. The wind here on Whidbey is a lot higher than 16, though. I'd guess around 30 or 35 would be closer. Note the "Real Feel" temperature of 34 degrees! Windy, wet, cold, and clammy, what a great day for a bowling pin shoot!

Since there's only two pin shoots and one steel challenge match left for the year, I really don't want to miss any of them. It's always a long dry spell until March when they get started back up.

I'll just dress warmly and shoot as fast as I can so I can go home and get warm!

Weekend Joke.....

When Osama bin Laden died, he was met at the Pearly Gates by George Washington, who slapped him across the face and yelled, "How dare you try to destroy the nation I helped conceive!"

Patrick Henry approached, punched him in the nose and shouted, "You wanted to end our liberties but you failed."

James Madison followed, kicked him in the groin and said, "This is why I allowed our government to provide for the common defense!"

Thomas Jefferson was next, beat Osama with a long cane and snarled, "It was evil men like you who inspired me to write the Declaration of Independence."

The beatings and thrashings continued as George Mason, James Monroe and 66 other early Americans unleashed their anger on the terrorist leader.

As Osama lay bleeding and in pain, an angel appeared. Bin Laden wept and said, "This is not what you promised me."

The angel replied, "I told you there would be 72 Virginians waiting for you in Heaven. What did you think I said?"

Thanks to Eddie in Ireland for the story!

Announcing Babelfish Translation TAAA DAAA!!

Cruising around on some of the French shooting blogs it became really obvious that if you don't know their language, you miss out on a lot of good stuff. I did a little looking around, and found that Babelfish, through Altavista, offers a free translation service and even provides a single line of code to paste into your template or start page to make one-click translations available.

Sure, the machine translations are often pretty hilarious, but it sure does give you a lot better idea what they are talking about than you get when you don't speak their language at all!

How about it, gun bloggers? Why not make it easier for gun nuts around the world to read your blog?

Manfred at Armes et tir passion, give it a try, I'd love to be able to read your blog more easily.

Just go HERE to get the line of code.......

French Pin Shooting - Followup

In the previous post I mentioned some gun bloggers and Bowling Pin Shooting in France. In the comments Rivrdog wondered if they were using American style pins, or a smaller style found in Europe. I went back through their archives to find out, as they looked like the same pins were are used to shooting.

Here's their pin table.

I found the answer, and here's the picture from their site. If you enlarge the picture you can clearly read "WIBC/ABC Approved" and "Made in USA". I didn't know that ten pin bowling was popular, or even exists, in Europe, except perhaps on a US military base.

Yep, that's the same exact kind of pin that leaves us mumbling to ourselves in frustration!

If any of you are going to be over in France in the Normandie area, you should go meet these guys.

Who knows, maybe they'll win a bunch of money in their lottery and they'll come over here, shoot some pins with us, then go to next year's Gun Blogger Rendezvous in Reno!

Wouldn't THAT be fun!

Pin Shooting in France - COOL!

Check THIS out:

I got a comment from Manfred in France (Normandie) and he and two of his friends are not only gun bloggers, they're pin shooters as well! They even have some pin shooting videos to prove it.

pin shooting christian
Uploaded by manfred

Their blog is Armes et tir passion. (Gotta put them on the blogroll). Go see!

Very Cool, I'd say.........

Gun Blogger Rendezvous '06 - Financial Report

This afternoon we wrapped up all of the financial details of the Gun Blogger Rendezvous. The intent was to try not to lose money, and, if possible, raise some money for Dan McKown's recovery and rehab. fund. Additionally, we wanted to make it possible for folks wishing to donate to Dan's recovery and rehab. fund to be able to do so. Now that all of the bills have been paid and the final accounting completed, here's how it came out:

$300.00 was donated directly to Dan's Recovery fund. $552.91 was raised through the registrations and through the fund raising at the banquet, for a grand total of $852.91 raised for Dan's Recovery fund.

On top of that, Dan and the rest of us all had a grand time in Reno.

Can hardly wait until next year............

Cowboy Blob is Gabby's Son?

Since it's nearing election time lots of rumors are flying around, most with little or no substantiating evidence. In the spirit of the season, Mr. Completely would like to start a brand new unsubstantiated rumor.

I have it on somewhat good authority from a sometimes partially reliable source that Cowboy Blob is, in fact, Gabby Hayes' son. Check out the pictures below.

Cowboy Blob

Gabby Hayes

In some of the other pictures the resemblance is even stronger, check out the eyes and eyebrows, not to mention the hat! (Of course, in some of the pictures the resemblance isn't as great, but staying true to the "New Scientific Method" I chose to ignore those pictures.)

It's just too bad that I'm not a whiz with photoshop, or I could make even a stronger case, just like the mainstream media does!

Carnivals

I'm a bit late in getting this up, but better late than never, I guess.....

Carnival of Cordite #77

Second Amendment Carnival

Aviation Quiz

How many of these aircraft names and/or nicknames can you identify?

1. Jug

2. Bamboo Bomber

3. Forked Tail Devil

4. Spam Can

5. Champ

6. Voyager (3 possible answers)

Like previous quizzes, put your answers in the comments below.

These are pretty easy, as I thought I'd go easy on you at first!!

..... and a Busy Weekend it Was!

Saturday:

Saturday morning I was off to the CWSA range for a Steel Challenge type match. It was so foggy on the way to the range that it was difficult to see the road at times!

I entered three classes, Centerfire Open, Revolver Open, and Rimfire Open. The first stage was "Showdown", not one of my favorites, but I shot reasonable times. Unfortunately with the revolver I missed one plate on one run and then got the stop plate, then had to come back for the missed plate, resulting in 8 seconds of penalties. I thought I had hit it, but apparently I missed, that happens! That was my throw-out run, but I had messed up one other run, and combining that with another 5 seconds of penalties for starting from the allowed "Low Ready" position instead of a holster, I was more or less destined to be down near the bottom overall with the revolver.

LouG was shooting faster than I've seen him shoot in the Revolver class, and was nipping on Al's heels. When Al had to shoot a seventh shot with his revolver he incurred a three second penalty, and Lou took the win! I told Lou I was going to go hack his site so we wouldn't have to listen to him gloating! By the time he got home Blogger had crashed and he couldn't get in.

(He still thinks I had something to do with it. I don't think I'll tell him any different.........)

Rimfire Open went much better, with my times right behind "Evil AL" who has one the Rimfire Open class at every steel match this year. Then I moved over to the second stage, "smoke and Hope", one of my favorites. My Rimfire Open times were only slightly slower than Al's, and since we were only shooting two stages today, that put me in a solid second place. With the revolver I shot a lot better on this stage, but only good enough to pull up to somewhere around 4th. or 5th. overall. Considering the hole I dug for myself on the first stage, I figure I was fortunate to have salvaged that much!

For Centerfire Open I was shooting my Taurus PT92 9mm. Econo Race Gun, and each match it's getting more competitive. My combined times for my four fastest runs was around 12 seconds, which works out to roughly 3 seconds per run! My fastest run was 2.77 seconds. Sure, the really fast guys at the nationals are in the 2 second range, but for me, that's really rockin' ! The no holster penalty added another 1.25 seconds to every run though, so I ended up third or fourth, I forget.

Do I want to spend another perhaps $300 dollars to get set up with "holsters" for my revolver and the 9mm.? I don't know. What they call holsters are basically high tech belt mounted gun racks, and they don't even look like holsters.

Sunday:

Back to CWSA for a rimfire hanging plate match. The turn out was small, but the weather was really nice, sunny skies after a bit of morning fog, but a pleasant Fall day!

Rimfire hanging plates is a fun sort of a match, with no long waits between shooting. The matches go quickly, even with a good turn out we're often finished in time for lunch. I managed to redeem myself against Al and Lou, taking both Iron sight and Optical sight classes, with Al in second and Lou in third, or something like that.

Hanging plates matches are as much of a social event as a shooting match, and no one takes the matches too seriously, so we all have a lot of fun at it!

After the match KeeWee and I went to Oak Harbor to pick up some food, buy a cheap shelf unit for the reloading bench, and hit the Dollar store.

Then back to Completely castle for a late lunch.

........ and then I took a nap!

JimmyB Loves Bacon!

Even from an early age, JimmyB has always shown a strong attraction to bacon!

Picture from www.nashvilleistalking.com - found by Say Uncle.....

It Looks Like A Busy Weekend!

The competitive shooting season is winding down, the days are getting short, and the weather mostly sucks. We started in early March, I think, and KeeWee and I have been hitting one or two matches almost every weekend since then, except for a couple of fishing trips and our Alaska trip. Now there's only a couple of pin shoots, steel matches, and hanging plate matches left for the rest of the year.

It's about time to take a break, give everything the full teardown and maintenance it needs, clean out the range box, and just kick back for a couple of months.

Tomorrow will be a steel challenge match at CWSA, and I think I'll stick to Rimfire Optical, Centerfire optical, and revolver classes. That ought to be enough for one day! KeeWee's off to the dentist tomorrow, so she'll miss the match, but steel challenge isn't one of her favorites, anyway..............

Sunday will be a rimfire hanging plate match, also at CWSA. KeeWee will definitely be there for that one! Hanging plate matches go quickly, so perhaps we'll head up to Oak Harbor for a little shopping, maybe swing by the Dollar Store (one of KeeWee's favorite stops) and grab an early dinner, or a late lunch, depending in how you look at it.

I'll let you know how it goes.........

Beretta U22 Neos Barrel Lengths

Beretta U22 Neos .22 Pistol with 7.5" Barrel and Simmons Red Dot Sight

I got the following comment to a prevoius post/review on the Beretta Neos. It was a good question he asked, so I decided to put it up as a full post, rather than have it lost in the comments to that one post.

Anonymous said...

Hi, I am thinking of buying a Neos but I am not sure if I should get the 4.5" or the 6" barrel, I would like some advice on this matter for somebody with experience.
This is going to be my first pistol.

Thanks for your help..

The Beretta U22 Neos is available with either a 4.5", a 6", or a 7.5" barrel. The barrels are easily removed and swapped. The longer barrels are easier to shoot accurately, or more specifically, to AIM accurately, since the front and rear sights are farther apart. This is often referred to as "Sight Radius". The longer barrels are usually slightly more accurate, and also give you just a little bit more bullet velocity over a shorter barrel.

If I was only going to use the pistol for plinking, I'd go with either the 6" or 7.5" barrel. If you think you might want to try some local club matches a ways down the road, either would work, but the 7.5 might be a slightly better choice. The short barrels are primarily to reduce size and weight, as for concealed carry situations, but a .22 caliber pistol of any barrel length is not a very good choice for personal protection.

Whichever you choose, be sure to pick up a couple of extra magazines while you're at it, as they will come in handy down the road when you start doing a lot of shooting to build your profiency with your new Beretta.

Try several different brands of ammunition. You'll be surprised how much difference one brand over another can make. Of the readily available and inexpensive ammunition for everyday shooting, KeeWee has had the best luck with the Bulk Federal ammo in the Neos.

If you decide to mount a Red Dot sight, there's a lot of info in the archives. Put "Red Dot" in the white box up at the top left of this page and click "Search" to find them.

Good luck, and good shooting!

Navy Pic of the Day

I saw this picture over at Murdoc online, and decided to, er.... "borrow" it. This EA6-B Prowler belongs to VAQ-138, based (last I looked) at NAS Whidbey, right here on Whidbey Island.

The CWSA range is just off the North end of OLF (Out Lying Field) Coupeville and we get to watch these guys practice touch and go's (more like "Smash and Dash, actually) there all the time. In fact, when they are on short final from the North we have to go "Cold Range" while they go by.

I suggested that we should just send the Navy a bill for our ammo, and tell them we are providing realistic training fire!

No one else seemed to like the idea, though.............

..... a Little cat blogging!

Birds, bunnies, squirrels, so much to watch!

Rocket, our guard cat, likes to position himself on top of the heat register, next to the sliding glass door that opens onto our front deck. From there he can keep a close eye on any birds visiting the bird feeders hanging from the eves.

The other day three semi-tame rabbits ventured onto Rocket's deck to eat the bird seed fallen from the feeders. For the whole story and some pictures, check it out at KeeWee's Corner.

Propane Fire Training

A couple of nights a year I let the local volunteer fire department set up some propane tanks on the far end of my pasture for night time propane fire training. They hook up a propane line from a tank a couple of hundred feet away to a tank with some "leaks". They use a highway flare on a long pole to ignite the propane, and then the fire crews practice cooling the tank and getting the fire out. As soon as one crew would finish, another crew would have a go at it. It was a damp and cold night with temperature in the mid 40's I'd guess, but the perspiration is real on the faces of the firefighters.

Hard and hot work!

Advancing on the fire.


The next crew, ready to go.


Very spectacular fires!


The firefighters carry their own air supplies on their backs.


It gives you a lot of respect for the power of propane.

The reflective strips really reflect light, and the reflected light made it difficult for the camera to judge exposures. Even so, it was quite an evening's entertainment.....

Gun Blogger Rendezvous Poll

(This is just a screen capture. The real poll is linked below)

Fodder over at Ride Fast & Shoot Straight has a poll up asking for the reason you didn't attend this year's Gun Blogger Rendezvous in Reno.

Head over and put in your vote, especially if you were thinking about going but didn't.......

A Range Trip With Cameron and his Dad

The phone rang the other day and it was Hank, the vacuum cleaner salesman. It turns out that KeeWee had entered a raffle at the county fair and had won a free air purifier provided she would listen to Hank's sales pitch for his high tech vacuum cleaners. I've known Hank for years, as I first met him at the county fair when he had a vacuum cleaner booth next to the booth run by our fishing club. We visited a bit about fishing and shooting, and he mentioned that he wanted to take his son Cameron out to the range for his first exposure to shooting a .22 rifle. I suggested that why didn't he swing by on Saturday and bring his son along. After showing off his vacuum cleaner, we could head over to the Holmes Harbor Range for a little shooting.

Come Saturday, Hank and Cameron showed up and demo'd the vacuum. It's called a Rainbow, and it seems to be a pretty darn good vacuum cleaner, and it has no connection to Rev. Jesse Jackson. After his demo, we headed over to the range. Hank, Cameron and I all discussed firearm safety and the four rules of firearm safety. Then we talked about what a range master does, and terms like "Hot Range" and "Cold Range" were discussed.

Note his trigger finger. Good habits learned early stay with you for the rest of your life!

After covering the bases safety-wise, we set the rifle on some sand bags and went through the basics of bolt action rifle shooting. The rifle was a tad long for Cameron, but he made the best of it. With a little practice Cameron was getting his shots to group a bit, and he was definitely showing improvement as he got more comfortable with the rifle.

After some rifle shooting, Cameron wanted to shoot dad's concealed carry .40 pistol. Really! Now a short barreled .40 is getting close to being a handful for people with full sized hands and hand strength, but Cameron's a pretty small dude. No talking him out of it, he wanted to shoot the .40. I was concerned with safety, so I suggested only loading one round at a time. Worst could happen would be he'd drop an empty gun after the first round.

We went over the basics, shoulders forward, aggresive stance, good grip, left hand with a strong grip, etc. He leaned into it and squeezed of a round. I thought he was going to jump out of his boots when it went off! He looked at his Dad, then looked at me, big ear to ear grin on his face!
"Can I shoot it again? Huh, Dad?" After four or five more rounds he decided that he'd had enough for one day, but two thing's are clear.

Cameron will remember his first range trip for the rest of his life, and he'll definitely be back for more!

Carnival of Cordite is up

Carnival of Cordite

Line Rider Game

I don't quite know what makes this "Game" so fascinating, but I find it to be lots of fun. You draw a line from left upper to right lower on the screen, then click on the triangular play button and a little guy in a toboggan slides down the line. If it's too steep, or the bumps are too high, he crashes in a fairly spectacular manner. Give it a try!

Hat tip to Blinkerfluid for finding this!

Living Alone Without Fear

James Rummel over at Hell in a Handbasket has a wonderful story up about a little old lady and a Beretta that allowed her to live without fear, although living alone. It's a good read, so go check it out!

(The picture is from his post)

CWSA Bowling Pin Shoot - 10/15/06

All night long we could hear the rain pounding on the roof and the wind howling away. This morning a look out the window confirmed our first impressions. The weather outside REALLY sucked! KeeWee's first words this morning weren't "Good Morning!", but rather, "Have a nice time at the pin shoot!"

Gusting winds and near horizontal rain makes outdoor shooting much less fun than it is on a nice sunny day. I considered pulling the blankets over my head and saying "To heck with it!", but then decided to get some breakfast first, then give LouG a call and see if the match had been rained out. Since the shooting stations at the pin range are covered it was unlikely, but you never know. A phone call could save me a drive.

KeeWee decided to get up and create some pancakes (YUM) and we had a good breakfast and some coffee to try to get the circulation going. After breakfast I called Lou, and yes, the shoot was on. I loaded the van and drove up to Coupeville

When I got to the range I could see that KeeWee wasn't the only one to stay home where it was warm and dry. All of the hardy types were there, however. When the weather is lousy all the fast shooters are the only ones who show up!

In Revolver class qualifying, LouG and I TIED to the hundredth of a second for combined times for three tables of pins! I've never seen that happen. Being tied for fastest times, we met in the first round. Last time we met with revolvers, I squeeked a win. Today was Lou's day as he knocked me out in the first round. I have a long memory though, and I'll be gunnin' for him next time! Lou met the same fate however, when he ran up against "Evil AL" in the next round. Al went on to take all the marbles in the revolver class, as is usually the case.

Optical sight Center fire was an interesting class today. The new compensator I had scratch-built for the Taurus PT92 Econo Race Gun was deflecting a LOT of energy upward, as it should, but it was blasting hard enough that it was bending the blast deflector, and yesterday it ripped the heads off of a pair of stainless screws that held the blast deflector on, sending the deflector flying. Last night I built a somewhat more stout blast deflector and bolted it on with some larger grade 8 bolts. That seemed to hold all day just fine.

I didn't notice exactly where my qualifying placed me with the 9mm Taurus, but I think it was something like third or fourth. My fast qualifying table was a 3.77 second run. Not exactly a world beater, but starting to get respectable, none the less. In the first round I met Rainy with her new very trick STI 9mm. race gun. The Taurus did it's stuff and I advanced to the next round, where I ran into "Evil Al". "This will tell me if the Taurus competitive or not, I thought!"

I shot some of the fastest centerfire tables I've ever shot, but Al wasn't exactly shooting slowly himself. Final count for that matchup showed one tie table, I got one table, and Al got two tables to advance to the next round. All of the tables were within tenths of a second between the winner and loser! Any time I can even stay close when shooting against Al I consider it a victory! Al really IS that good! Thanks to a first round bye, that was still good enough for second place in Optical Sight Semi-Auto. WOOO HOOO ! ! !

JimP and I were the only two signed up for Iron Sight Rimfire, so we went ahead and shot our qualifying tables anyway, just for fun. We then shot a couple of tables against each other, again, more for the fun of it than anything else.

Optical sight rimfire only had seven entries, but all have won at least one rimfire pinshoot in the past, so there were no easy opponents. I don't remember exactly who shot against whom, but I do remember that Rainy knocked out Evil Al, which was an upset, as Al doesn't get knocked out very often. Rainy has been showing steady improvement over the last few months.

LukeN, who has been absent from most of the shoots this year due to working out of town was back for this shoot, and shot well enough to make the final, where we had a couple of close tables, but I finally got by him for the win. Luke hasn't been shooting all Summer, nor has he had time to do any practicing. I hope he doesn't start practicing!

Although the weather was less than optimal, we all had a good time and managed to stay dry.

If I win the lottery (you gotta buy tickets? ....bummer....) I'll hafta fly JimmyB the Conservative UAW Guy out here for a pin shoot.

The more the merrier!!

---

UPDATE: LouG at Mad Gun has his post up on the match. Dang, I HATE it when he gloats like that.......... (well, not really!)

A Million Rounds a Minute!

Gun Can Shoot 1 Million Rounds A Minute

Now THIS would get me some good times on bowling pins, if I could just afford the ammo......

Upcoming Democratic Convention Agenda

Upcoming Democratic Convention Agenda

6:00 p.m. - Opening flag burning ceremony.

6:05 p.m. - Opening secular prayers by Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton

6:30 p.m. - Anti-war concert by Barbra Streisand.

6:40 p.m. - Ted Kennedy proposes a toast.

7:00 p.m. - Tribute theme to France.

7:10 p.m. - Collect offerings for al-Zawarhi defense fund.

7:25 p.m. - Tribute theme to Germany.

7:45 p.m. - Anti-war rally (Moderated by Michael Moore)

8:25 p.m. - Ted Kennedy proposes a toast.

8:30 p.m. - Terrorist appeasement workshop.

9:00 p.m. - Gay marriage ceremony (both male and female couples)

9:30.p.m. - * Intermission *

10:00.p.m. - Posting the Iraqi Colors by Sean Penn and Tim Robbins

10:10 p.m. - Re-enactment of Kerry's fake medal toss.

10:20 p.m. - Cameo by Party Chairman Howard Dean screaming his lungs out.

10:30 p.m. - Pro-abortion demonstration by N.A.R.A.L.

10:40 p.m. - Ted Kennedy proposes a toast.

10:50 p.m. - Pledge of allegiance to the UN.

11:00 p.m. - Multiple gay marriage ceremony (threesomes, mixed and same sex). Rep. Barney Frank (D,Mass.), Sponsor .

11:15 p.m. - Maximizing Welfare workshop.

11:30 p.m. - 'Free Saddam' pep rally.

11:59 p.m. - Ted Kennedy proposes a toast.

12:00 p.m. - Nomination of democratic candidate.

Any chance we could get Ted Kennedy to drive Hillary home from the convention ?

Thanks to Mad Gun for this one!

Rendezvous Report -- Part III

Saturday morning we were up and at 'em bright and early. After everyone got their weapons out of storage and loaded into the vehicles, we headed off to Denny's for breakfast. The place was crowded but the waiter was well organized and managed to get us all seated and fed without any major catastrophies!

Chowin' Down!

Kevin had a pretty cool shirt!

After a good breakfast we drove about twenty miles out of town to the Washoe County Parks Department Public Shooting Range. It's a really nice range, well run, and very safe. The R/O's kept close tabs on the shooters for safety sake, but were also great to work with. Sadly, not all ranges are as well run!

This is the "Handgun" range. It goes from 15 yards to about 800 yards!

Lots of room for all types of shooting.

We took up almost a third of the range!


Shoot - reload - shoot - reload. Oh well, somebody's gotta do it, it might as well be us!!


So many guns, and only six hours to shoot them all!

The conversations behind the firing line alone were worth the trip!

I'm not out of ammo yet, but I'm working on it, and enjoying every minute of it!


Not only is he funny, he can also shoot!


All kinds of styles, all kinds of weapons, everyone had a ball!


She was sending lead down range, and launching brass right in front of my face! It DID make you concentrate!


Yours truly giving Kris's .480 Ruger a try. Mmmmm, ** I WANT ONE **
Photo credit to ARRGGHHH!! and SWWBO

Around four o'clock we loaded up our gear and headed back to the Circus Circus to clean up a bit and go to the Gun Blogger Rendezvous Dinner. We still didn't know if Dan McKown, our Guest of Honor, had been able to get a flight to Reno or not. To my relief, as we were walking through the hotel to head t odinner we ran across Dan, also headed to the Rendezvous dinner. He had arrived only an hour or so earlier! WHEW!

I was pretty busy at the dinner and I didn't have a chance to take any photos, but KeeWee has a bunch of photos posted at KeeWee's Corner.

After dinner it was back to the Hospitality room for the rest of the evening, filled with stories and more refreshments. We were WELL refreshed, by golly!

The next morning we hit the breakfast buffet one last time, then packed everything up and headed off to the airport for our return flight to Seattle, then a shuttle ride and a ferry ride back to Whidbey Island and home.

As we were on descent into Seattle, the Sun was just setting, and it makes a nice last picture from Gun Blogger Rendezvous I.

Next year maybe we'll see YOU there!

Gun Blogger Rendezvous Report -- Pt. II

After heading back to the hotel from the liquor store and "non-gun" shop, I was greeted by an email and phone message from our guest of honor for Saturday night's Gun Blogger Rendezvous dinner. It turns out that Dan's driver got stuck in traffic on their way to the airport in Seattle and arrived at the Alaska Air Lines check-in counter only 15 minutes before flight time. Alaska Airlines had already re-sold his seat, and the next flight was much later that night. Since the flight eventually turned out to have departed roughly an hour late, they certainly could have gotten Dan onto the flight.

Dan thought that the banquet was on Friday night instead of on Saturday, so he just gave up and went home. Fortunately he got in touch and let me know what had happened. I told Dan that the dinner was on Saturday night, and to do whatever he could do to get a flight to Reno as soon as he could manage it.

Several times throughout the weekend I would go push a little money into a one armed bandit. I was hoping one of them would be a shooting sports enthusiast and would cough up enough for me to go buy a brand new race gun. No luck!

One corner of the Circus Circus slot machine area.

After my first encounter with a slot machine, I had my five dollar bill reduced to the cashout ticket below:

No going to get rich this way!

Seeing that I was not going to get rich consorting with slot machines, I decided to wander around a little bit and then head back to the hotel room to get cleaned up a bit before dinner. Shortly thereafter KeeWee showed up from her exploring the area, and we got ready t ohead off to dinner at the buffet with some of the other gun bloggers. Dinner again was wonderful, and we all over-ate!

After dinner it was back to the hospitality room for refreshments and a fun evening of tall tales and funny stories with all of the gun bloggers in attendance. A couple of laptops were set up, and our Rendezvous was back on line with live blogging. Very cool, again!

Stories and refreshments flowing freely at the Hospitality room.

Deep in thought, and on line!

We had a wonderful time exchanging thoughts, stories, and ideas.

The Friday night hospitality room ran well into the night until everyone finally started to run down and headed off to get some sleep as we would need to be up bright and early tomorrow morning to head out to the range.

...end of part II

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For KeeWee's latest Reno report click here.

Can You ID This Shotgun?

Here's a quiz for you! Click on the picture for a good look, then see if you can guess it. Here's a couple of hints: It's new manufacture, and you can't buy them here yet, but soon.......

Oh yeah, and I want one!

GBR - First After Action Reports

Gun Blogger Rendezvous One has come to a close ,and by now all of the attendees have most likely arrived back home. KeeWee and I got in late last night, and are pretty much worn out from all the fun! We've got lots of pictures and stories for your enjoyment, and we'll be getting them posted over the next few days as time permits.

US Citizen from Traction Control one-upman-shipped us all by having his Verizon wireless equipped laptop on the firing line on one of the shooting benches, and was live blogging directly from the firing line! How cool is that!

The first prize in the drawing at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous dinner was a Hi Point 9mm. pistol, and the lucky winner was Rivrdog. When he found out that he had won, he handed the winning ticket to Dan McKown, letting Dan win the free handgun. Very cool for a guy that persists in calling me a "Gizmo Gunny!"

Joe Huffman from The View From North Central Idaho and Boomershoot, has a partial list of some of the attendees and some of their posts on the Rendezvous, which I have "Borrowed" from his site, and I've added a little bit to the list below:

• Gunblogger Status Report (Anarchangel)
• Hours and hours of shooty goodness (Anarchangel)
• Reno 911 (Say Uncle)
• On the gunblogger meetup (Say Uncle)
• Range time (Say Uncle)
• I’m leaving on a jet plane (Og at Neanderpundit)
• Gunblogger Rendezvous - It’s Cordite Time! (with pictures by Traction Control)
• Gun Bloggers Rendezvous Update (Spank that Donkey)
• Getting Ready for the Rendezvous (Kevin at The Smallest Minority)
• AAR - Reno gun Blogger's Rendezvous (Og at Neanderpundit)
• Range Report - Gun Blogger Rendezvous (Rivrdog)
• Gun Blogger Rendezvous (The Armorer at Castle ARRGGHHH!!)
• State of Mind - (Joe Huffman's after dinner presentation)
• Rendezvous Wrap-up - (Joe Huffman)
• Gun Blogger's Paradise - (Joe Huffman)
• I Didn't Do It! - (Joe Huffman)
• Returned From The Rendzvous - (Kevin at the Smallest Minority)
• First of All - (Og the Neanderpundit)
• GBR1 Debrief - (Fodder of Ride Fast & Shoot Straight)
• Reno GBR Reports - (Beth at She Who Will Be Obeyed)
• Reno GBR Reports - (Beth at She Who Will Be Obeyed)

Be sure to read the comments to the posts as there is even more info on the event.

More later.........

Basic Training

LouG at Mad Gun has a post up on training and practice as related to shooting written by a Marine who knows what he's talking about. Kelvin, the author of the post is not only a fine shooter, but a darn nice guy, too!

Go have a read, it'll be worth your time, I promise....

Man Speak Decoded

There have been numerous attempts to translate women's speech into logical thought patterns so the average normal person can understand. This is a reasonable attempt to translate men's speech patterns. This explains so much..

Man speak: "I'm going fishing."
Translated: I'm going to drink myself dangerously stupid and sit in a boat with a stick in my hand while the fish swim by in complete and total safety.

Man speak: "It's a guy thing."
Translated: There is no rational thought pattern connected with it and you have no chance at all of making it logical.

Man speak: "Can I help with dinner?"
Translated: Why isn't it on the table already?

Man speak: "Uh huh", "Sure, Honey," & "Yes, dear."
Translated: Absolutely nothing. It's a conditioned response.

Man speak: "It would take too long to explain."
Translated: I have no idea how it works.

Man speak: "Take a break, honey. You're working too hard. "
Translated: I can't hear the game over the sweeper.

Man speak: "You know how bad my memory is."
Translated: I remember the theme song to 'F-Troop', the address of the first girl I ever kissed, and the vehicle identification numbers of every car I've ever owned, but I forgot your birthday.

Man speak: "Oh, don't fuss. I just cut myself; it's no big deal."
Translated: I have actually severed a limb, but will bleed to death before I admit I hurt myself.

Man speak: "I was listening to you. It's just that I have things on my mind."
Translated: I was wondering if that red-head over there is wearing a bra.

Man speak: "I heard you."
Translated: I haven't the foggiest clue what you just said and I'm hoping desperately that I can fake it well enough so you don't spend the next three days yelling at me.

Man speak: "That's interesting dear."
Translated: Are you still talking?

Man speak: "I am not lost! I know exactl y where we are."
Translated: No one will ever see us alive again.

Hat tip to Uncawho!

Gun Blogger Rendezvous Report -- Pt. I

Thursday morning KeeWee and I boarded the Whidbey-SEATAC shuttle van for our 2 hour ride down to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. We checked our bags and had a couple of hours to kill before our flight to Reno, so we headed over to the Food Court for a burger and a soda pop.

The Alaska Airlines flight to Reno was un-eventful, (I LIKE it when flights are un-eventful) and there was little to see as it was pretty well clouded over below us. I did get a peek at Crater Lake from the air, I think, but couldn't be sure. We gorged ourselves on a one half ounce bag of unidentifiable snack crunchies each (why do they even bother, it's not even one mouthful!) and a soda pop and a cup of coffee. A little under two hours in the air and we were in Reno. We grabbed the half-hourly Circus Circus shuttle to the hotel. As we were waiting for the shuttle we saw three limosines pick up people and cart them off. It looks like some folks in Reno have got a buck or so!

We Checked in at the hotel, then headed up to our room to drop off the bags and go find the Tahoe Hospitality room to see who had arrived so far.

View from our room

Our room had windows on two sides, and both directions offered great scenery. the room was comfortable, and even had Starbucks coffee. (I guess when they figured out we were from Seattle and were shooters, perhaps they decided they better drag out the good stuff?)

View from the other side of our room

One of the Circus Circus Hotel signs.

We grabbed the elevator down to the Tahoe room where the Hospitality room was set up, and a few folks had already arrived.

Note the times!

Rivrdog and US Citizen checking quality control on the micro-brews RD picked up at the brewery on the way to Reno.

To get between the two towers of the Circus Circus, there's two elevated shuttle trams and a sky bridge walkway. This is one of the colorful tracks for the tram.

KeeWee and I, Rivrdog and Gudwife had been given tickets for a semi-posh fund raiser dinner and wine tasting over at the El Dorado, so we wandered over there for dinner. It was a bit yuppie for me, but I finally found some real non- "foo foo" food made out of real pieces of cows and pigs that tided me over, while everyone else was cooing over the properties of some stuff that I probably would have used as crab pot bait. The dessert table was a winner, though, as those folks seem to understand chocolate, at least!

After dinner we went back to the Tahoe room for the balance of the evening. We sat around the Tahoe room until we all started fading in and out and getting fuzzy, so we drifted off to get a good night's sleep.

The next morning a group of us headed out to find a good breakfast, and we found a winner in the Victorian Buffet in the adjoining Silver Legacy Casino. JimmyB was in breakfast heaven, with unlimited bacon! .....mmmmmm -- bacon!

This was my FIRST plate full.

Yup, I went back for more! OK, more than once! (KeeWee is looking over my shoulder as I write this, attempting to keep me honest!) Biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs, bread pudding, bacon (JimmyB left me a little...) waffle with maple syrup and whipped cream, cantalope, and a croissant. A good start, I'd say!

After breakfast several of the ladies headed out on their own to explore, while JimmyB, Rivrdog, and I wandered off to look for a liquor store and any gun shops we could find along the way. We found one big liquor store. (I also picked up a jug of Bailey's for KeeWee, but I like the stuff too).

Rivrdog checking out the liquor store a few blocks away, stocking up for Friday night's hospitality.

Not far from the liquor store was a fair sized sporting goods store with a large sign proclaiming GUNS for sale, along with other sporting toys. We went in with great expectations, but were disappointed to be told that they did not carry any evil guns, or ammunition, or even anything loosely related to guns. The gal in the store clearly did not like guns. Kinda made me wish I'd of had a big ol' revolver holstered on my hip (open carry legal in Nevada) just to watch her develop a really good reason for a quick trip to the ladie's room, so to speak!

(End of report -- Part I)

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KeeWee also has her first post up on our Rendezvous adventures HERE.